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World Cup 2019: Vijay Shankar ruled out, Ambati Rayudu overlooked once again

Vijay Shankar was struck on the left big toe whilst batting in the nets on June 19th in Southampton.

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Vijay Shankar’s toe injury has ruled him out of the World Cup. (Right) Ambati Rayudu
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The number of wounded players ruled out of the Indian World Cup team rose to two with Vijay Shankar being the latest casualty.

Following Shikhar Dhawan's thumb injury that forced him out of the World Cup, 'three-dimensional player' Shankar will miss the rest of India's campaign in the World Cup after sustaining a "non displaced fracture of the left big toe".

"Vijay Shankar was struck on the left big toe whilst batting in the nets on June 19th in Southampton. He was able to play in an unrestricted manner in the following two matches against Afghanistan and West Indies," said the BCCI in a statement on Monday.

"Following the match on June 27, the condition of his toe worsened and a CT scan showed he sustained a non-displaced fracture of the left big toe. The condition will require a minimum of three weeks to heal. The injury rules him out of the ongoing World Cup," it added.

Shankar has been replaced by Karnataka batsman opener Mayank Agarwal after the BCCI requested for a "suitable top-order batsman".

The choice of the Indian team's think-tank as a replacement for Shankar is baffling, to say the least.

It has overlooked one of the original standbys, Ambati Rayudu, and named the young Karnataka batsman who will feature in the Indian one-day squad for the first time.

A couple of days after India announced the World Cup squad of 15 on April 15, PTI reported quoting a board official that the BCCI had named Rishabh Pant, Rayudu and Navdeep Saini as the three standbys for the World Cup.

While Pant, from the standbys, was named as a replacement for Dhawan and has already made his World Cup appearance in the loss to England on Sunday, Rayudu has been ignored once again.

With the ICC doing away with the practice of letting countries announce a probables' list before the final squad, the board has the option of naming anyone from outside the designated standbys. This, then, defeats the very purpose of naming standbys and is only giving false hopes to those named.

While Rayudu has been India's regular No. 4 in the tournaments leading up to the World Cup, it came as a shock that the selectors went in with Shankar for the original squad. That the inexperienced Tamil Nadu all-rounder did not make the most of the three chances he was given spoke about his inadequacies with the bat at the highest level.

Of course, Shankar did a mark with the ball, picking up a wicket off his very first delivery in the World Cup, against Pakistan. But he did not get a bowl in the next two matches, against Afghanistan and the West Indies.

While one would expect an all-rounder to replace the injured all-rounder Shankar, the selectors have gone in for Agarwal, a frontline batsman. So, where is the like-for-like replacement in Shankar's case?

What wrong has Rayudu done to be ignored completely? Rayudu is also an out-an-out middle-order batsman. Rayudu can roll his arm over with off-breaks, can keep wickets too in times of contingencies, though it may not be required as there are already four wicketkeepers in the squad.

Perhaps, Rayudu's tweet a day after his omission from the World Cup squad – "Just Ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the world cup," with a couple of emoticons – did not go well with the BCCI. The post seemed to mock the chief selector MSK Prasad's remark of Shankar being a 'three-dimensional cricketer' and hence got the nod ahead of the Hyderabad batsman.

But here again, if the BCCI had issues with Rayudu's tweet, why did it name him as one of the World Cup standbys the day after he tweeted it?

With the latest indication of not even looking at Rayudu as a replacement, it may be curtains for Rayudu as far as his international career is concerned.

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