Former Indian opener turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has shown his surprise at Shreyas Iyer’s revelation that he would not have been in the squad had Virat Kohli been fit. However, Kohli was ruled out of the first ODI due to a knee injury.

However, in a post-game interaction with the broadcasters, Iyer revealed, “As you all know I wasn’t supposed to play today. Virat unfortunately got injured and then I got the opportunity. I kept myself prepared. I knew that at any point of time I can get a chance to play.”

Aakash Chopra, however, took to his X handle to question India’s decision on Shreyas Iyer’s exclusion if Virat Kohli had been fit and where Kohli himself would have batted in this order as well.

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He posted: “Trying to wrap my head around the revelation that Iyer wasn’t likely to play if Kohli was fit. He’s the first Indian to score 500+ runs batting at 4 in a World Cup. 2023. How could you bench him?? And if he wasn’t going to play, where was Kohli supposed to bat? At 4? Surely, Gill wasn’t getting pushed to 4,”

Meanwhile, former Indian wicketkeeper-batter Parthiv Patel opined on Shreyas Iyer’s possible omission from the playing XI had Kohli been fit for the first ODI, considering his stunning ODI numbers as well.

“Interestingly, in the last 10 ODIs for India, Iyer’s average is 60, and so does Shubman Gill. That is the reason why we all thought that Iyer would be 100% certainty. That is why you should just see Gautam Gambir and Rohit Sharma thinking what kind of combination India should go with in the next game because it looks like India want to go with Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma as openers and not Iyer in the middle order. So that would be very happy headache to have,” said Patel on Star Sports.