Overview
- On Monday former India opener Sadagoppan Ramesh publicly challenged the selectors for naming Harshit Rana to India’s T20I squads despite Ramesh’s claim that Rana has not played domestic cricket since knee surgery.
- Rana suffered a right-knee ligament injury that ruled him out of the T20 World Cup 2026 and forced him to miss the entire IPL 2026 season while he recovered.
- The BCCI selected Rana for the T20I tours of Ireland and England and for the Asian Games and he remains in those squads even though there has been no reported public response from selectors or team management.
- Commentators point to an established precedent where injured players such as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Iyer and Mohammed Shami were asked to prove match fitness in domestic cricket before national recall.
- Critics have also revived past allegations of favoritism linking Rana to the current coaching and selection team and say the controversy could deepen scrutiny of selection policy and player morale before the Ireland series later this month.