Irfan Pathan Reflects on Shreyas Lyer’s Exclusion From India’s 2025 Asia Cup Squad

Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan said Shreyas Iyer would have felt bad after being excluded from the Asia Cup squad. Iyer had performed consistently in T20 cricket and many cricket boffins believed he deserved a spot in the squad.

More surprisingly, Iyer was not even included among the five stand-by players of the squad. Iyer scored 604 runs in 17 matches at an average of 50.33 and a blistering strike rate of 175.07. Ergo, he played an instrumental role in taking PBKS to the final of the tournament.

“If I were Shreyas Iyer, I would feel bad, and he should also. He is not even on the substitutes. But when the selection was going to happen, I was thinking Shreyas Iyer and Shubman Gill, either of the two has to be there as you have to prepare a leader. Shreyas captained well in the IPL and made match-winning contributions as a captain and a batter. But keeping Tilak Varma out could also have been a big issue,” Irfan Pathan said on his YouTube channel.

On the other hand, Pathan backed Jitesh Sharma’s inclusion in India’s Asia Cup squad. Sharma scored 261 runs in 11 innings at an average of 37.29 and a blistering strike rate of 176.35 for RCB in IPL 2025 and played a key role in the franchise’s successful run in the tournament.

“The way Jitesh Sharma played in the IPL, I feel he definitely deserved it. If he had not performed like that, it would have been difficult for RCB to reach the top. In that sense, Jitesh being there is a very big positive,” he said.

India Squad for Asia Cup: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah.