Rahul Tewatia disappointed after getting ignored from Ireland tour

The selectors named a 17-member squad for the upcoming tour to Ireland for a two-match T20I series and there weren’t many surprises with most of the familiar names making the squad. Hardik Pandya as expected was named the captain, with Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer joining the Test squad for England tour while Bhuvneshwar Kumar was named his deputy.

Rahul Tripathi earned his maiden call-up to the Indian side on the back of his impressive performances in IPL 2022 for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, however, there was no place for Rahul Tewatia. The Gujarat Titans all-rounder played 16 games for his franchise scoring 217 runs at an average of 31 and a strike rate of 147.62, and he played some match-winning innings throughout the campaign.

More than the number of runs, it was about the impact he had, and he certainly impressed a lot of experts as well by doing the toughest job of finishing off innings on more than one occasion. However, with India having two strong finishers in the form of Pandya and Dinesh Karthik at the moment, it was always going to be tough for the selectors to pick up another finisher although Tewatia did deserve a place.

Here’s the Tweet from Rahul Tewatia

“Expectations hurts,” – Tewatia captioned his Tweet stating his disappointment after being ignored for the Ireland series. It has to be noted that Tewatia has already earned an Indian call-up after the 2020 IPL stint for the Rajasthan Royals but could not make it to the Indian side on the back of his fitness issues. With a cool head and calm shoulders, Tewatia would be an ideal candidate in a T20 side as he has the ability to contribute with the overs if needed and is a safe fielder inside the circle as well.

IND squad for IRE series: Hardik Pandya (C), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (vc), Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, R Bishnoi, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik

The first T20I between India and Ireland takes place on June 26 at the Malahide Cricket Club in Ireland.