Former Indian player Kris Srikkanth slammed the management for dropping the in-form Ruturaj Gaikwad from the India squad for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand. Srikkanth then cheekily said that Ruturaj might have to convince the selectors about his wicketkeeping credentials to earn a spot in the team as well. Notably, Gaikwad scored a blistering 105 off 83 deliveries in his last ODI innings against South Africa in December 2025 as well.
Talking about Gaikwad’s exclusion from the ODI squad, Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel: “Maybe Ruturaj Gaikwad can say I’ve played with Dhoni so I can also keep. That’s the only way he might get selected in 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.”
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“It’s saying even if you score a century, there is no chance. Now Gaikwad has to start from scratch and score a mountain of runs because they’ll forget this century against South Africa. They’ve dropped him also so he has to score big again in domestic cricket,” he shared again.
However, Kris Srikkanth believes Ruturaj Gaikwad’s dropping from the New Zealand series could have long-term repercussions too as well. He also believes, like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Gaikwad should have been in the 15-member team, if not the playing XI now.
“Yashasvi Jaiswal also won’t play in the 11 but at least he’s in the reserves. So by being in the 15, he will at least be in the scheme of things. But with this selection, they’ve removed Ruturaj Gaikwad from the overall scheme of things and from the system itself. And when you’re removed from the system itself, everyone, including the public and the selectors, will forget about him. It’s very unfair. The whole idea of performance in an international match goes to waste. An effortless century like that is going to waste. Memory is short for everybody, so they’ll forget it soon,” Kris Srikkanth concluded.
