Former Indian Test opener Sadagopan Ramesh has questioned Harshit Rana’s selection ahead of Ireland and England T20Is. Rana missed the T20 World Cup due to a ligament injury and then was also ruled out of the Indian Premier League 2026.

However, Ramesh highlighted that the team management had earlier made it compulsory for players to prove their fitness in the domestic circuit before returning to the national team.

Sadagopan Ramesh said on his Instagram handle, “How have you selected Harshit Rana? I don’t think he has played any domestic cricket after knee surgery. Nobody knows the answer to this. Just imagine Shami’s mind voice now, or even the others’ mind voice.”

The former flamboyant batter said players like Virat Kohi, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya had to prove their fitness in the domestic tournaments before getting back into the team after injury.

“Whether it was a Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma, the management said they had to play domestic cricket to be considered for selection. Even when Hardik Pandya got injured, he was asked to prove his fitness for selection. For Shami, they questioned if he could bowl longer spells after injury and asked him to prove himself after injury,” said Ramesh (via the aforementioned source).

Ramesh also recalled that Shreyas Iyer had to prove his fitness by playing the Vijay Hazare trophy ahead of New Zealand ODIs.

“The current T20I skipper, Shreyas Iyer, himself was asked to prove his fitness before the New Zealand ODIs by playing the Vijay Hazare Trophy. There are many such examples like this. So they’ve set the precedent that if a player has to come back into the Indian team, especially after injury, he must prove himself and his fitness in domestic cricket.”

India will play two T20Is against Ireland and five T20Is against England.