5 Unlucky players in Indian cricket history

India is blessed with so many talented cricketers. The country has been lucky to produce cricketers like Zaheer Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly among many others. Even currently, the likes of Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja (to name only a few) are keeping the Indian flag high in the international circuit.

But there are a plethora of talented players in the domestic circuit who deserve to play at the highest level for the national team. While some of them never get that opportunity as there is no place in the national team, few who get a chance turn out to be unlucky as they are dropped in favour of regular players. Unfortunately, these players were never included again in the team which kept them limited to playing for their respective state teams.

Here we bring you five unlucky players in the Indian cricket history:

1. Ambati Rayudu

Ambati Rayudu has to be one of the unlucky cricketers in the country. He made his international debut in 2013 against Zimbabwe and since then, got chances only when the senior players rested. However, his name started doing the rounds during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 when he plundered runs for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) opening the innings.

The consistent run at the top of the order led to Rayudu being picked for the ODI series in England. However, the Hyderabad was later dropped from the side ahead of the tour as he failed the fitness test. Though after England tour, he made a comeback officially and displayed amazing form batting at the much debated number four position.

Virat Kohli then even went on to say that the team was looking for a batsman like Rayudu in the middle-order. But things changed with the turn of the year. 2020 didn’t start well for Rayudu who had a rather quiet Australia series which followed up with fairly decent New Zealand ODIs. During the home ODIs against Australia, Vijay Shankar displayed decent all-round skills and eventually he was picked in the final World Cup squad by the selectors.

This led to a massive disappointment for Ambati Rayudu who announced retirement from all forms of the game later in the year. Though there were reports later that he made himself available for the Ranji Trophy 2019-20 season. He last played competitive cricket in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Hyderabad in November last year.