Ishant Sharma wishes Ambati Rayudu best for his post-retirement venture

While Virat Kohli’s men marched to the semi-final of the ICC World Cup 2019 after beating Bangladesh by 28 runs in their league match at Edgbaston on Tuesday, something less desirable happened back home. Middle-order batsman Ambati Rayudu announced his retirement from all forms of cricket international and domestic, including the Indian Premier League.

While the 33-year-old cricketer did not mention the reason behind his sudden retirement call in the statement that he issued, it was thought that he took the step after getting ignored for the Indian World Cup squad for the second time in a row. Rayudu, who many had thought would be India’s No.4 batsman in the tournament, was snubbed eventually and was replaced by Vijay Shankar who made his ODI debut just early this year.

Rayudu’s form with the bat in 2019 was considered to be the reason for him not making the cut while the chief selector MSK Prasad hailed Vijay as a “three-dimensional cricketer”. He took an indirect dig at the selectors after he was overlooked and tweeted saying he had “ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the world cup”. Though the selectors did not take any step against Rayudu, it seems his tweet had not got down well with them.

Rayudu’s tweet after getting snubbed hurt his chances

After Vijay got injured and was ruled out of the World Cup, not Rayudu but Mayank Agarwal was called up as his replacement. It was despite the fact that Rayudu remained a standby cricketer for the squad and Mayank not having made his ODI debut yet. He was not considered even when Shikhar Dhawan got injured and found himself out of the fray. Rishabh Pant was picked as Dhawan’s replacement on that occasion.

India seamer Ishant Sharma, who spearheads the bowling attack in Tests, greeted Rayudu on his retirement call and said he had put some great inputs in cricket. He also wished him luck for the future. Ishant himself is also in the five-men reserve list for India’s World Cup squad.

Here is Ishant’s tweet:

Rayudu, who was once dubbed as a special talent after having made his first-class debut as a teenager, played 55 ODIs and six T20Is to score around 1,700 runs with three hundreds. He, however, has been a major name in T20s with 216 games under his belt and 4.5k runs.