Indian cricket often works in strange ways. Good scores do not always mean a player keeps his spot. Ruturaj Gaikwad deals with this frustrating situation right now. Selectors recently left the Maharashtra captain out of the One-Day International squad for the New Zealand series.
This move makes little sense if you look at how he has been playing. Just last month, during the December 2025 games against South Africa, Gaikwad made the most of his chance. He hit a brilliant hundred.
The CSK captain scored 105 runs off 83 balls in the second ODI. He showed a mix of traditional shots and new-age power. This knock gave the Indian innings a solid base. The performance seemingly locked him in his place as a top-order choice. Still, the selection committee had other ideas.
Shreyas Iyer, coming back from injury, made the batting order very crowded. Keeping Rishabh Pant in the mix added more pressure. Even so, the selectors surprisingly dropped the man who had just delivered results.
By leaving out Gaikwad, the management sends a messy message. This move hits domestic players and fringe prospects hard. He did everything the board wanted. However, the 28-year-old still remains on the bench.
Other players, like the talented but less experienced Nitish Kumar Reddy, kept their places. This snub sends Gaikwad back to local matches. He has to pile up huge scores all over again. These choices make his international success feel like it does not matter.
They mess with a player's flow and self-belief. It makes the team feel unsettled. In this setup, one hundred does not count for much against the big names.
Kris Srikkanth breaks his silence on Ruturaj Gaikwad's snub
Former chief selector Kris Srikkanth spoke out about this with his usual direct style. He used sharp wit to show his annoyance. Specifically, he joked that Gaikwad might have to come up with a whole new trick to get the selectors to look at him.
The 1983 World Cup winner suggested the batter should tell people he can keep wicket. Srikkanth talked about Gaikwad’s years with MS Dhoni at Chennai Super Kings. The former captain hinted that just being around the famous keeper might give him a way back in.
He thinks the team cares more about all-rounders or specific team shapes than pure batting form. So, Gaikwad could jokingly claim that being Dhoni's teammate makes him ready to wear the gloves.
"Maybe Ruturaj Gaikwad can say I've played with Dhoni, so I can also keep. That's the only way he might get selected for the team. Shreyas Iyer is a certainty, so he should have been included. But Ruturaj Gaikwad should have been in the 15. Instead of having Nitish Kumar Reddy, keep him in the 15," Srikkanth was quoted as saying by India Today.
Srikkanth was clearly annoyed with how they picked the squad. He agreed that Shreyas Iyer earned his comeback. However, he strongly hated the choice to cut Gaikwad entirely. The former opener said the selectors should have left out Nitish Kumar Reddy instead.
This would have kept Gaikwad in the 15-man group and involved with the national team. Srikkanth worries that dropping him now makes people forget Gaikwad exists. It also hurts the CSK captain's chances for the 2027 ODI World Cup. The bosses forget a winning hundred in just a few weeks. Now, the road to the next big trophy looks very hard for the classy batter.
