Follow UsShreyas Iyer is currently having a brilliant 2025 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), where he has scored 514 runs in 14 games at a strike rate of 171.90 while averaging 51.4. Meanwhile, he recently won the Champions Trophy as well with team India in the ODI format, where he was the second-highest run scorer in the tournament behind Rachin Ravindra. Hence safe to say his white ball career is going in the right direction.
However, the same can’t be said for Iyer in Test cricket, as the last Test he played was more than a year back in February 2024 against England in India. So far, he has played 14 Tests for India and has scored 811 runs at an average of 35.26. When the Indian squad for the England Test series was announced recently, the Mumbai batter was missing from that as well.
When asked about his omission from the Test side, Gautam Gambhir gave a very terse response to the media and bluntly said, "I am not a selector."
Notably, this is after Iyer had a really good Ranji Trophy where he scored 480 runs for Mumbai in seven innings at an average of 68.57, which also included two splendid centuries.
Earlier, chief selector Ajit Agarkar explained his absence in the press conference that followed the squad announcement and said, “Yes, Shreyas Iyer had a good one-day series, has played well in domestic cricket, but at the moment, there is no room for him in the Test team.
Along with Iyer, his Mumbai teammate Sarfaraz Khan was also missing from the 18-member squad. Pacer Mohammed Shami, who was deemed unfit to bowl long spells in red-ball cricket also missed the cut.