Harshit Rana coming from a long injury layoff has been included in India’s T20I squads for Ireland, England and the Asian Games. The pacer sustained injury just ahead of this year’s T20 World Cup and also missed the IPL 2026, as he underwent a knee surgery.
His selection has been questioned by former India cricketer Sadagoppan Ramesh, who argues that Harshit has made straight back into the national without playing a single match after recovery. Ramesh slammed the Ajit Agarakar-led selection committee, saying this would send a wrong message to players like Mohammed Shami.
“How have you selected Harshit Rana? I don’t think he has played any domestic cricket after knee surgery. Nobody knows the answer to this. Just imagine Shami’s mind voice now, or even the others’ mind voice,” Ramesh said in a video on his Instagram.
Ramesh pointed out that the selection committee deviated from their existing precedent for players making a comeback from injury to prove their fitness by playing in doemstic cricket, but in Harshit case they made an exception.
“Whether it was a Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma, the management said they had to play domestic cricket to be considered for selection. Even when Hardik Pandya got injured, he was asked to prove his fitness for selection. For Shami, they questioned if he could bowl longer spells after injury and asked him to prove himself after injury,” Ramesh said.
“The current T20I skipper, Shreyas Iyer, himself was asked to prove his fitness before the New Zealand ODIs by playing the Vijay Hazare Trophy. There are many such examples like this. So they’ve set the precedent that if a player has to come back into the Indian team, especially after injury, he must prove himself and his fitness in domestic cricket,” he added.
