'Rehab was good. I passed all the tests and came here match fit. It is all fine. Obviously, it hurts when you are in form and get injured, Kedar Jadhav said
New Delhi: India batsman Kedar Jadhav said he was surprised that the selectors did not pick him for the remaining three matches against the West Indies despite being fully fit. However, the selection panel chief MSK Prasad has revealed the reason for keeping the fit-again player out.
On Wednesday, India announced a 15-man squad for the final three ODIs against the Windies. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah were back while Mohammed Shami was dropped.
Jadhav, who has regained full fitness and played for India A against India C in the Deodhar Trophy, hit an unbeaten 41 off 25 and bowled five overs on Thursday. But his efforts were not enough for the selectors to recall him into the ODI squad.
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"I did not know this," said Jadhav when asked if there was any communication over his selection for the remaining three games against the West Indies.
"Let's see. You are the first one to tell me this. I need to see why they have not picked me. I don't know what the plan is now that I am not there in the team. Probably, I will be playing the Ranji Trophy," said the 33-year-old from Pune.
Jadhav said he had passed all fitness tests after being sidelined due to injury.
"Rehab was good. I passed all the tests and came here match fit. It is all fine. Obviously, it hurts when you are in form and get injured. It creates uncertainty on when you will get the next opportunity. And when you comeback, you have to start from scratch again as you end up missing a lot of matches. It hurts but you have to accept it and move on," he said.
When asked about Jadhav's omission, Prasad said that it was because of his history of fitness issues.
"We did not pick Kedar because of his history of fitness. There have been occasions earlier when he has come back fit and then broke down, a case in point being the Asia Cup last month," Prasad told PTI.
"Actually, we were thinking that if India A won today, then Kedar would have got another match, which would have given us a fair assessment of his match fitness. May be we could have added him as an additional player (in Indian team) before the fourth ODI as the Deodhar final is on Saturday. Players need to understand that there is a process that we follow while selecting the team," he added.
Jadhav is the third player in recent times to have spoken about no communication from the selectors. Earlier, Murali Vijay and Karun Nair were in trouble after revealing that they were dropped from the Test squad without any communication from the BCCI selectors.
(With inputs from PTI)
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