The announcement of the Indian squad for the Bangladesh tour made it clear that India’s super senior cricketers are not getting any opportunity to represent the nation in the near future. Yes, they are the big names of Indian cricket; Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.

Indian Cricketers: Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan

A couple of years back, it was completely unimaginable that these cricketers would not find a place in the team so soon. And now we are witnessing the same. They are out of action for the last several months. Though, Harbhajan Singh has been selected in the test squad, but for a single test match only.

1) Virender Sehwag: The flamboyant batsman made a scintillating century in his maiden test in 2001. He helped India win a lot of matches single handedly in both tests and ODIs. The prolific batsman scored 2 triple hundreds in his test career, which is still a record. The veteran cricketer has represented India in 104 tests and 251 ODIs. He has scored more than 16000 runs in both formats of the game.

2) Gautam Gambhir: Technically, the 33-year-old is rock solid and perfect in class and placement. If he is called a veteran cricketer, then it’s his gigantic performance in tests and ODIs that made him so. He made his debut in 2004-05 and gave a consistent performance in both tests and ODIs. Out of his 9 test tons; India had lost none of them. Similarly, his 8 out of 11 ODI centuries came for a winning cause. He has played 54 tests and 147 ODIs so far. He scored around 10,000 runs, including both formats of the game.

3) Yuvraj Singh: He is considered to be one of the most talented Indian middle order batsmen in the last two decades. He proved his worth every now and then with both bat and ball. Yuvi is also an extremely useful slow-left-arm bowler and provided breakthrough to his team when needed. After the Cricket World Cup 2011 in which he was awarded player of the tournament, the ace all-rounder couldn’t cement his place in ODI squad. His successful fight against cancer is an inspiration to many people suffering from serious diseases. It is truly heart-wrenching to see that Yuvraj is constantly being overlooked. Especially, when he dreamt to represent the nation in blue jersey again while battling against the fatal disease. He played 293 ODIs and scored more than 8300 runs.

4) Zaheer Khan: In the post Kapil Dev era, Zaheer Khan is the most fearsome bowlers of India. His astute left-arm-fast bowling troubled lots of ace batsmen in the past. Popularly called Zak, the bowler never failed to disappoint his captain and fans. Lethal Yorkers from the veteran bowler can dismiss the best batsmen of the world at any point in time. Zaheer Khan played 92 tests and took 311 wickets.

5) Harbhajan Singh: The ace off-spinner’s return to test squad elated lots of cricketers. He has been picked for Bangladesh tour and legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar opined today that Harbhajan deserved a comeback. The 34-year-old took 413 wickets in 101 tests that he played until now.

Age can’t be a sole criterion to judge whether a cricketer should play or not. Only performance matters. It would be amazing to see these cricketers collectively representing team India one more time, even if that turns out to be a farewell series for the sake of an honourable exit which they are all worthy of.

Tags: Bangladesh, Cricket, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, India, ODIs, Squad, Team India, Tests, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan