Mumbai batter Sarfaraz Khan, who has played six Test matches for Team India in 2024 after making his debut against England in Rajkot on February 15, 2024, on Tuesday (October 21) was not included in the India A squads for the upcoming two four-day matches against South Africa A. The senior men’s selection committee’s decision to ignore Sarfaraz, who has a batting average of more than 65 in first-class cricket, came as a shock for everyone. Many fans expressed their disappointment over his exclusion from the squads, and now former India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has also joined the bandwagon.
Ashwin, who played six Tests for India with Sarfaraz last year, slammed Sarfaraz’s exclusion and said that he can’t find any logic behind his non-selection.
“I can’t find any logic behind Sarfaraz’s non-selection in the India A side. I feel very, very sad for him. If I were a selector, what would I call and tell Sarfaraz?” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“He has reduced weight, and he has scored runs too; he even hit a century (150 in the 2nd innings of the Bengaluru Test) against New Zealand. This kind of non-selection leads me to think that someone, somewhere, thinks, ‘Sarfaraz Khan ko dekh liya, abhi nahi chahiye (We’ve seen Sarfaraz Khan, don’t need him anymore).'”
“He has not been selected in the India A side. What happens to him now? Literally, the door has been shut on him. Where will he perform? Now if he does well in first-class cricket, they will say he is a very good player in first-class, so he won’t get an A series. Where will he go and prove his credentials?” Ashwin added.
“When such a non-selection happens, it probably feels like someone in the management or the selectors has decided that we are not looking at him anymore.”
🚨🚨Ravi Ashwin exposed Agarkar over non-selection of Sarfaraz Khan:
– I don’t get a single answer when I think of Sarfaraz Khan’s non selection, I feel very very sad & sorry for him. What kind of communication is done with him?
– He reduced his weight, he scores tons of runs,… pic.twitter.com/npNKaQK3aC
— Rajiv (@Rajiv1841) October 22, 2025
According to Ashwin, who is India’s second-highest wicket-taker in Test as well as international cricket, communication and selection strategy should align.
“The problem is that your communication and selection should match. I remember Subramaniam Badrinath used to play for the India A team and was the captain as well for a long time but did not get selected. The same happened to Manoj Tiwary. The communication that went through was that ‘we have seen enough of you, and now we want to take a look at fresh faces. So you won’t be playing for the India A team anymore, but if we need you in the Indian team, we will pick you,'” he said.
“But if you look at the current India A side, there is a little bit of confusion. If you say we have seen enough of Sarfaraz in India A, and only if we need him will we pick him in the Indian side, then that will be wrong. Because you picked Abhimanyu Easwaran, and he has played enough for India A. However, barring these cases, the rest are all futuristic – Harsh Dubey and Manav Suthar,” he added.
