‘High time Rajat Patidar at least gets a look in’ – Sadagoppan Ramesh questions team management on selection for Ireland and England T20Is

Sadagoppan Ramesh opined that if Rajat Patidar is not selected on India’s side for the T20Is, he should at least be made captain of India A following his excellent record as the captain of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Under Patidar’s astute leadership, RCB won the IPL in 2025 and 2026.

Rmaesh said that Shreyas Iyer was appointed captain of the T20I side after impressing as a leader in the IPL. In the same way, the former India opener believes that Patidar should at least be a part of the side.

“Shreyas Iyer has been made the T20I captain based on his IPL showing. But that raises the question on why there is no one in the T20I side from the two-time defending champions RCB. It is high time Rajat Patidar atleast gets a look in as a player in the T20I squad. If not, atleast for the India A tours, Patidar must be considered as captain,” Ramesh said on his Instagram handle.

Despite performing phenomenally as a captain and as a specialist batter in the IPL, Patidar failed to get a call-up in India’s squads for the T20I series against England and Ireland and the subsequent Asian Games.

“Giving Sai opportunities is great, but Padikkal should be given just as much” – S Ramesh

Ramesh also believes that Devdutt Padikkal should have gotten as many chances as Sai Sudharsan to showcase his batting talent. The cricketer-turned-expert highlighted the error in head coach Gautam Gambhir’s assessment of Sudharsan not getting too many chances in tough batting conditions in England. Ramesh said that Padikkal got to play in equally difficult conditions, if not more, during the last Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

“Giving Sai opportunities is great, but Padikkal should be given just as much. Gambhir justified favoring Sai over Padikkal by saying Sai had limited chances in England, with the conditions in England being tough. But Sai actually played 6 out of the 10 innings in England. Meanwhile, when Padikkal last played in Australia, he got only two out of 10 innings,” said Ramesh (via the aforementioned source).

“So it is clear Padikkal has got lesser opportunities compared to Sai. Gambhir’s next point for favoring Sai was the tougher conditions in England. Yet, India’s average score in the England series was 381 with 12 individual centuries. But the series in Australia, the average score for India was only 213 with just three centuries. So it is clear Padikkal has also played in tougher conditions than Sai,” he added.