Mayank Agarwal being ignored for the T20I tri-series in Sri Lanka is tough to explain

Editor’s note: This article was originally published before the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. In the final, Mayank Agarwal scored 90 to take his tally in the tournament to 723 runs.

More than 2000 runs during the domestic season but the excruciating wait for a first India call-up continues for Mayank Agarwal. Many pundits and fans alike, who have been closely following the season, predicted that the 27-year-old to be a part of the India’s tri-series team for Sri Lanka. The selectors, though, opted for Deepak Hooda – arguably the Baroda batsmen was chosen over Agarwal for his expertise in Twenty20 cricket.

One can also argue that earning a spot in the Indian team is not easy to come by. In recent years, Shreyas Iyer and Gujarat’s Priyank Panchal were also not rewarded instantly after topping the run charts in the Ranji Trophy. Iyer, though, did make the jump only after proving that he was no one season wonder.

But Agarwal makes an extremely strong case. And like-for-like replacements have been the key in India’s latest selection, especially with MS Dhoni, skipper Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya rested. Take the selection of all-rounder Vijay Shankar, for whom this might be a make or break series.

As for the pacers, India’s second string – Mohammad Siraj, Jaydev Unadkat and Shardul Thakur – receive another chance to present their case for a spot in next year’s World Cup. Thakur comes into the tournament with form on his side, having impressed in South Africa.

India’s middle and lower-order are set to have a new look against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh next month. A position where there won’t be any tinkering, though, is the opening spot. Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan will continue to open and have been named the captain and vice-captain respectively.

Scenario no 1: One wonders if Agarwal would have got his chance had either of them opted out of the tournament. It is a spot that that he has truly made it his own. However, it also happens to be a spot that has a number of batsmen already jostling for, taking turns while throwing their hat in the ring. India already have a back-up opener in the squad in KL Rahul, and that might have dented Agarwal’s chances further.

Scenario no 2: Then comes the middle-order, India’s problem position in limited-overs but it has been largely masked through Kohli’s repeatedly making batting look ridiculously easy, irrespective of a lack of practice or playing in alien conditions.

On the few rare occasions where India’s top three of Rohit, Dhawan and Kohli, collectively failed, picking up pace through the middle-overs has been a cause of worry. Manish Pandey pursuit for cementing a place in the side continues. With Pandya being the designated slogger, it is widely seen that Dhoni’s powers to clear the rope at will is on a bit of a freefall, despite shutting up his detractors every once in a while.

That could also be one of the reasons why, over the last year, India fell back to veterans Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina to amp up India’s scoring rate through the middle-overs. Raina’s T20 nous has won unanimous praise. The southpaw also returned the faith with a couple of breezy knocks in South Africa.

If Agarwal had a chance to sneak into the side, it was as a middle-order batsman. But, he missed on two young players who have garnered a reputation for being clean hitters in Rishabh Pant and Hooda. Both batsmen have impressed in the Indian Premier League too, which prompted many on Twitter to question the selectors in yet another age old debate: Does the IPL take precedence over the Ranji and Vijay Hazare Trophy during selection?

Former India opener Aakash Chopra tried to make sense of BCCI’s choice of selection:

The IPL-centric theme around selection refused to die down:

While this may border on hilarity for some, there were a couple of calls on Twitter for Rohit Sharma to take a break from cricket too: