Indian middle-order batter Hanuma Vihari has opened up on his omission from the Test squad the last year. He has played 16 Tests for India, but his last appearance came during the rescheduled fifth Test against England in July 2022 as well. Since then, he hasn’t been in the mix of the Test squad.

Reacting to his snub from the Indian Test side, Hanuma Vihari told The Indian Express: “Definitely, there was disappointment. I didn’t find a reason why I was dropped and it was the only thing that was bothering me. Nobody really contacted me and told me the reasons why I was dropped. It took some time and I have gone through ups and downs and I’m not worried about it now. I’ve put aside my personal side of things and I don’t take too much stress about whether I’m in the Indian team or not. There are other matches to win and it is about winning the trophies.”

Meanwhile, Chetan Sharma, the former chairman of selectors, said that Hanuma Vihari is in the scheme of things while dropping from India tour of Bangladesh.

“It is a misconception that I only bat slowly. Test cricket can be played in different ways and you can’t just stick to one way of playing. If you take the last match (semifinals) for instance, it was an opportunity to show different skill sets that a batsman requires to play all three formats. Test cricket allows you to show that. On Day 1 and 2 (Duleep Trophy semi-final), there was proper line and length bowling and you had to leave those deliveries because the conditions were challenging. But when the pitch eased out and when we were chasing, you could see shades of the 50-over and 20-over game coming into play because of time constraints,” he concluded.