Former Team India player Sadagoppan Ramesh questioned the exclusion of RCB captain Rajat Patidar from the Indian T20I squad for the upcoming Ireland and England tours. Patidar led RCB to clinch their second title in a row in the recent IPL 2026 season. He scored 501 runs, which came at an average of almost 42 and a strike rate of 192.69 in 15 matches. Yet, India recently announced a 15-member T20I squad without any RCB players.

Talking about Rajat Patidar’s surprising exclusion, Ramesh said on his Instagram handle: “Shreyas Iyer has been made the T20I captain based on his IPL showing. But that raises the question on why there is no one in the T20I side from the two-time defending champions RCB. It is high time Rajat Patidar atleast gets a look in as a player in the T20I squad. If not, atleast for the India A tours, Patidar must be considered as captain.”

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“Giving Sai opportunities is great, but Padikkal should be given just as much. Gambhir justified favoring Sai over Padikkal by saying Sai had limited chances in England, with the conditions in England being tough. But Sai actually played 6 out of the 10 innings in England. Meanwhile, when Padikkal last played in Australia, he got only two out of 10 innings,” again said Ramesh.

“So it is clear Padikkal has got lesser opportunities compared to Sai. Gambhir’s next point for favoring Sai was the tougher conditions in England. Yet, India’s average score in the England series was 381 with 12 individual centuries. But the series in Australia, the average score for India was only 213 with just three centuries. So it is clear Padikkal has also played in tougher conditions than Sai,” he concluded.