Twitter was flooded with memes after star India wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant was not included in the national squad announced to take on Sri Lanka in next month's T20I and ODI series.

Rishabh Pant's removal from India's white-ball teams was received with mixed reactions on social media with some supporting his omission while others were left fuming with the BCCI's move.

However, many Team India fans were in for a rude shock after the selectors left out Rishabh Pant from the squad for the T20Is and ODIs against Sri Lanka.

The controversial decision divided opinion on the internet and invited a flurry of memes and jokes from netizens.

 

Notably, in 2022, Rishabh Pant even led the Indian cricket team when senior pros like Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, and Hardik Pandya were unavailable. While many expected his exclusion from the side named for the shortest format of the sport, his omission from the ODIs surprised almost everyone.

“The All-India Senior Selection Committee has picked India’s squads for the upcoming Mastercard Sri Lanka Tour of India to be held in January 2023. The tour comprises three T20Is and as many ODIs,” the BCCI press release said.

Besides the pocket dynamo, others dropped were veterans Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shikhar Dhawan and Rishabh Pant's contemporary Sanju Samson.

Taken aback by the Chetan Sharma-led selection panel's move, Rishabh Pant's admirers went on to dub it a “truly shocking” decision.

While others claimed that it was “baffling” to see Rishabh Pant not being a part of India's ODI squad considering his numbers in the format are quite impressive in 2022.

“Since the start of last year, Rishabh Pant’s numbers in ODIs are outstanding – average of 45, strike rate of 109 – and three innings ago he made an exceptional hundred to win a series away from home against the world champs. If he has been dropped, and not rested, it’s baffling,” a fan wrote on Twitter.

The left-hander's axing came on the heels of growing criticism of his performances in white-ball cricket.

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In recent days, many former cricketers, including Simon Doull, Aakash Chopra, Salman Butt, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, etc slammed his figures in limited-overs cricket.

“As of now everyone believes that he (Pant) is a special player, extremely talented, is an X-factor kind of cricketer, but he hasn't lived up to the reputation in white-ball cricket thus far,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube channel last month.

“In Tests, today also Rishabh Pant is not only India's but the world's best wicketkeeper-batter. Not many top-order batters have played more dynamic and impactful knocks than him, forget about a keeper. But the truth is that he has not done that good a job in ODIs and T20s considering the opportunities he has got,” the former India opener noted.

Rishabh Pant has produced one bad performance after another in T20Is but has an average record in ODIs. Notably, in ODIs, Rishabh Pant has managed to score 865 runs from 30 matches, with five half-centuries and a hundred. The southpaw averages 34.60 in the 50-over format and smashed a match-winning ton against Jos Buttler-led England earlier this year.

His impressive numbers in ODIs possibly inspired Dinesh Karthik to throw his weight behind Rishabh Pant ahead of the Bangladesh series. The Uttarakhand-born player, however, didn't feature in the three ODIs against the Asian side due to personal reasons.

“We need to look at it separately. In one-day cricket in the last 10 innings, he averages 45-plus. He obviously got the match-winning score of 120 (125 not out) in the recently concluded series in England. So he's done very well for himself and when someone has done very well for himself, you cannot look at him and say ‘Oh he should be from one-day cricket',” Dinesh Karthik said.

“I think, you know, you need to give him the opportunity to be out there and do well and if he doesn't do well, then move on. But you can't just move away because he has done something else in another format. I think that's something that's unfair to the player as well,” Dinesh Karthik added.

“I think because of the amount of cricket, especially T20 that is played, obviously, they are comparing that and adding those scores and saying, ‘Oh, he hasn't done well'. That's not how we need to look at things.”

India squad for Sri Lanka T20Is: Hardik Pandya (Captain), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav (VC), Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Sanju Samson, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Harshal Patel, Umran Malik, Shivam Mavi, Mukesh Kumar.

India squad for Sri Lanka ODIs: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (VC), Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umran Malik, Arshdeep Singh.