Mohammad Azharuddin disagrees with MSK Prasad’s reasoning to keep out Ambati Rayudu

The Ambati Rayudu saga doesn’t seem to come to an end despite both sides moving on with their lives. Rayudu announced his retirement after being overlooked for the second time as a replacement player in the World Cup and MSK Prasad, the BCCI chief selector providing a reason for his exclusion. The Indian team was knocked out in the semi-finals after a loss to New Zealand.

After being overlooked, Rayudu made the now-infamous “3D glasses tweet” and this was seen as the reasoning behind him being not picked when Dhawan and Shankar got injured during the tournament. However, the selectors came out with an explanation, that Mayank Agarwal was chosen specifically as the team management requested for an opening batsman.

Azharuddin disagrees with the selector’s reasoning

Rayudu was initially pegged to be the first-choice batsman at no.4 spot in the batting line-up, playing most of the matches in 2018, at the position, even playing an amazing knock against New Zealand to help India come out of a hole after losing 4 early wickets. However, his form deserted him in 2019 and Vijay Shankar leapfrogged him into the World Cup squad.

Now his statemate Mohammad Azharuddin has come out in defense of former Hyderabad player. Azharuddin said that he doesn’t really see the reasons given by MSK Prasad for keeping Rayudu out as proper and was quoted as saying by Deccan Chronicle as, “When a person is standing by, I feel the standby person should be picked, if any replacement is needed. If you are a selector, you can overrule captain and coach. You can put your foot down and say, ‘no, we will send this player’. When I was captain, I also wanted some players but the selectors said no. It happens. You are not selected, it is very sad. It happened like that. But, his (Prasad’s) explanation, I don’t agree with it.”

The former India captain, who led in the 1992, 1996 and 1999 WC editions has again reiterated the fact that he will in fact run for the post of President of the Hyderabad Cricket Association whenever the elections will take place.