Selection controversies: When Ambati Rayudu took sudden retirement after 2019 World Cup snub

Team India batsman Ambati Rayudu (Source: Twitter)

Team India middle-order batsman Ambati Rayudu stirred a big controversy when he took sudden retirement from the game after being left out for the World Cup squad in 2019.

Despite being named in the reserves, Rayudu was not even called up in the squad after Shikhar Dhawan and Vijay Shankar suffered injuries and Rishabh Pant and Mayank Agarwal were, instead, named as their replacements.

Interestingly, in October 2018, Rayudu was backed by Kohli to be team India’s number 4 for World Cup 2019 but the team management and selectors overlook him and they chose to pick all-rounder Vijay Shankar instead.

Rayudu even took a dig at then head selector MSK Prasad who had said that "Vijay Shankar gives three dimensions" to the team.

"Just ordered a new set of 3-D glasses to watch the World Cup," Rayudu had tweeted in response.

To add insult to injury, Rayudu was not called up even after Shankar was injured and India needed to bolster their batting. Rayudu announced retirement from all forms of cricket the day Agarwal joined up with the team in England in July 2019.

However, Rayudu did make a U-turn and came out of retirement in August 2019. He confessed that the retirement decision was made in haste.

"I declined lucrative offers to play in T10 and T20 leagues in Canada and other countries. I have come out of retirement for well-wishers. It is not a U-turn as for good reasons I believe I have a good amount of cricket left in me. My top priority is now to get runs for Hyderabad," the batsman had said.

Rayudu was last seen in action in IPL 2021 in which he played for MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and scored 136 runs in seven matches at a whopping strike rate of 200 before the T20 league got suspended due to numerous cases of COVID-19 in various teams.