Prateek Tanmay
3 min readJun 8, 2026 09:32 PM IST
Former India captain and ex-chief selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth has launched a blistering attack on the selectors over India’s T20I squad for the upcoming Ireland and England series, questioning multiple calls — from the vice-captaincy to the all-rounder slots.
India have named Shreyas Iyer as the new T20I captain, with Tilak Varma handed the vice-captaincy after Axar Patel was stripped of the role he held during the T20 World Cup. Speaking on his YouTube channel CheekyCheekaTV, Srikkanth was unimpressed. “Tilak Varma hasn’t even captained a side,” he said, taking aim at chief selector Ajit Agarkar and head coach Gautam Gambhir for the decision.
The former chief selector was equally pointed on the Tilak vs Patidar debate, a view he had aired on CheekyCheekaTV earlier this IPL season and one that has only hardened since.
“He is not in form, and he doesn’t have the big-hitting capacity. He is not a tearaway batter. He can play shots, but he can’t demolish attacks like a Phil Salt or Rajat Patidar. Tilak Varma can’t smash the bowling like Rajat Patidar,” he said. “He hasn’t done well for MI in the last two to three IPLs. He can’t take the opposition out of a contest. At his position, he has to play impactful knocks like Patidar.”
Patidar’s case for inclusion was hard to ignore. He captained RCB to back-to-back IPL titles and amassed 501 runs in IPL 2026 at a strike rate of 192.69, clearing the ropes 42 times across the season. Yet he finds himself out of the squad entirely — a decision Srikkanth described as the selectors’ headache that they have simply refused to solve.
On Washington Sundar, Srikkanth pulled no punches on CheekyCheekaTV. “Washington Sundar doesn’t deserve a place in the team. He doesn’t even bowl for GT and is playing as a middle-order batter. So he is a stand-by middle-order batter for India as he’s not bowling at all. He doesn’t bowl for GT and rarely bowls even for India. So it’s a question mark as to how Sundar is a certainty in the side as an all-rounder,” he said.
Sundar bowled just 9.1 overs across 17 IPL 2026 games, with Gujarat Titans deploying him almost purely as a batter. For Srikkanth, that made the case for Krunal Pandya straightforward. Krunal, he argued, should have walked straight into the squad in place of Sundar — and should also have been preferred over Ravi Bishnoi. Krunal delivered 226 runs at a strike rate of 145.80 and took 14 wickets for RCB across the season, exactly the kind of two-way contribution Srikkanth believes Sundar is not currently offering India.
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Chief selector Ajit Agarkar acknowledged the difficulty of the selection process, saying the squad is full of equally talented cricketers competing for spots. For Srikkanth, that is simply not a good enough answer.
