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The BCCI announced India's squad for the one-off Test against Afghanistan with Shubman Gill leading a relatively youthful side, frontline stars like Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja rested and three uncapped domestic players earning maiden call-ups.
For the most part the selections were understandable and, in some cases, genuinely exciting. But for anyone who spent the winter following the Ranji Trophy closely, three glaring omissions stand out players who did absolutely everything they could with the red ball to force the selectors' hand and somehow still found themselves on the outside looking in.
Chief selector Ajit Agarkar even acknowledged at the press conference that at least one of them was close. Close, but not close enough.
IND vs AFG: 3 players who deserved to be picked in India's Test squad for Afghanistan based on Ranji Trophy performance
1. Auqib Nabi
When Bumrah is rested, Akash Deep is injured and Harshit Rana is unavailable, the back-up seamer slots should in theory go to the most prolific red-ball pace bowler in India.
That bowler, by a considerable distance, was Auqib Nabi of Jammu and Kashmir. He took 60 wickets in a single Ranji Trophy season, the seventh-most in a single campaign in the tournament's history and the third-most among seamers, with seven five-wicket hauls across his ten matches including five-wicket hauls in all three knockout games as J&K made history by reaching their first-ever Ranji Trophy final.
His combined tally across his last two first-class seasons stands at 104 wickets. He has bowled long, probing spells on every kind of surface the Indian domestic circuit produces, green tops, flat decks, dry dustbowls.
Agarkar himself admitted at the press conference that there was certainly a chat around Nabi and that he was close for India call up. The selectors instead went with Gurnoor Brar of Punjab, a raw quick with IPL-tracked rhythm but considerably less first-class volume. The decision is hard to fault on youth development grounds but even harder to justify on pure merit.
2. Shreyas Gopal
With Ravindra Jadeja explicitly rested for this fixture India needed a lower-order batting all-rounder who could also bowl spin.
The India selectors went with uncapped left-arm options in Manav Suthar and Harsh Dubey. What they did not go with was Shreyas Gopal, who this Ranji season was arguably the most complete all-round package in the domestic game.
He scored 469 runs at 33.50 including a top score of 77 and took 48 wickets at 23.14 with his leg-spin, including a best of 8 for 110, two five-wicket hauls and a ten-wicket match haul. He opened his season with a half-century and 11 wickets against Saurashtra and did not stop producing.
Against Afghanistan's spin-heavy attack, having an experienced leg-spinner who could also contribute meaningfully at number seven or eight would have given India captain Gill enormous tactical flexibility. The decision to overlook him in favour of two left-arm spinners who bowl in the same channel feels like a missed opportunity for variety and balance.
3. Ravichandran Smaran
India's number three slot has been one of the most pressing vulnerabilities in their Test setup since Cheteshwar Pujara's departure and it was painfully exposed during the 2-0 home series defeat to South Africa in 2025.
If the selectors were looking for a traditional anchor-type batter to fill that void, Smaran of Karnataka was staring them in the face with numbers that were impossible to argue with. He scored 950 runs at an average of 86.36 in eight matches this Ranji season with a highest score of 227 not out, four centuries including two unbeaten double hundreds, and a hundred in each innings of the semi-final against Uttarakhand.
He has the rare ability to bat through long double-sessions, absorb pressure during top-order collapses and protect the tail, exactly the skills that India's Test number three needs in abundance. The selectors opted for Devdutt Padikkal and Sai Sudharsan. Against a non-WTC Afghanistan fixture, this was precisely the assignment to give a specialist like him his first opportunity.
IND vs AFG: The bigger picture
None of this is to say the players who were selected are undeserving. Gurnoor Brar, Manav Suthar and Harsh Dubey have all earned their call-ups through genuine domestic performances.
But the Ranji Trophy is Indian cricket's most demanding competition and when three players produce season-defining numbers of the kind Nabi, Gopal and Smaran have produced, the expectation is that at least one of those performances gets rewarded at the highest level. Agarkar's public acknowledgement that Nabi was close is a small consolation. For three players who did everything humanly possible to make this squad, close is not the same as a cap.
