Shreyas Iyer should have been picked for England tour: Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly usually does not openly back any cricketer for selection for an international tour. But when the former India skipper and BCCI president makes a statement, the cricketing world sits up and takes notice. During an interview with Moneycontrol on Monday (June 9), Ganguly made it clear that Shreyas Iyer should have been part of the Indian Test team in England.

X post in March

Ganguly pointed out that in one of his posts on X on March 25, he had said that Iyer was ready to play “all formats.” He also said that although performance in limited-over cricket cannot be considered as a yardstick for the longer format of the game, now it could be clearly seen that Iyer has made considerable improvement to his game, especially against short-pitched deliveries.

Ganguly even went to the extent of saying he would have selected Iyer for the England test series.

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'Would have picked Iyer'

“I know the white ball isn’t an index for red ball cricket but you can clearly see he is a much improved player against the short ball. He played well in the Champions Trophy and he should have been here with the team. I would surely have picked him and got him here for the Test series.” He said as quoted by Moneycontrol.

Elaborating further, Ganguly said that Iyer was at his peak batting form and it shows in his confidence adding that batsmen are selected on their confidence and form.

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‘Iyer in peak form’

“This guy is playing the best he ever has and as I said I’d have picked him on this tour. When you don’t have a Kohli or a Rohit or a Rahane, Iyer should have been there for he also has the experience. He has led domestic sides and you can see he is in that zone”, said Ganguly.

Referring to Iyer’s form in the IPL, Ganguly drew attention to how he dealt with short balls adding that the effort he had put in improving his game was evident.

“That’s why I had tweeted in March that this guy is ready to play all formats. While I understand the selectors did not pick him for this tour, let me tell you that in this sort of form, you can’t keep him out of red-ball cricket for too long. He will surely get an opportunity soon from what I have seen”, said Ganguly.