5 Indian players who always play for second-string side but rarely make it to senior team

India is a cricketing nation where people see cricket as nothing less than a religion. There are tons of domestic tournaments which take place throughout the year and each year, we see a new talent emerging out of nowhere. Most of the young talent comes into the limelight, starts performing consistently, gets an IPL contract and makes his name.

The players keep on waiting for that one single opportunity that could make their career. However, with the amount of talent India have in the domestic circuit and players who are already playing, it is difficult to get an opportunity. Back in 2013, MS Dhoni started the rebuilding phase of Indian cricket as he brought players like Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, etc into the team. With the injection of these youngsters into the team, it was difficult for others to make enough impact to get into the Playing XI.

There are players who have been performing consistently well, but they rarely got chances into the senior team. As a part of the second-string side, the players were among the run-getters and were consistent throughout as well. However, it is not possible to give everyone a chance because of which some players were left out of the squad, despite their brilliant performances.

Here are 5 Indian players who always play for the second-string side but rarely make it to the senior team:

1. Shubman Gill

One of the hottest names going in the Indian domestic circuit is none other than Shubman Gill. The 20-year old has quickly risen to success, thanks to his consistent performances in the domestic circuit. Gill is one of the only few batsmen who have performed in every series, every tournament, every match they played in these last couple of years. His heroics also won India the U19 World Cup back in 2018.

Shubman Gill won the Player of the Series award in 2018 U19 World Cup. Against Pakistan U19, Gill scored a magnificent century which earned him praises from some of the best ever cricketers including Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. He was the most impressive U19 cricket, along with Prithvi Shaw. Last year in August, Gill broke the record of youngest player to score a double century in first-class cricket. He scored 204 runs for India A against West Indies A in 2019.

He earned his maiden call-up for the senior team against New Zealand in January 2019 and also got his maiden test call-up against New Zealand in 2020. However, he had to warm the bench in the test series and did not get a chance to showcase his skills in the top flight. In List-A cricket, the Punjabi sensation has scored close to 2300 runs at an average of 46. The youngster has a lot of cricket in him and it is only the beginning of a promising talent.