While Kedar Jadhav was surprised at his omission from the squad for the final three One-day internationals against West Indies, India’s chief selector MSK Prasad cited the cricketer’s fitness problems in the recent past as the reason for the decision.
Jadhav, who picked up a hamstring injury during the Asia Cup final, returned to action on Thursday in the Deodhar Trophy game for India A and was taken by surprise when informed by the media that he did not make it to the squad.
“We did not pick Kedar because of his history of fitness. There have been occasions earlier when he has come back fit and then broke down, a case in point being the Asia Cup last month,” Prasad told PTI.
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“Actually, we were thinking that if India A won today, then Kedar would have got another match, which would have given us a fair assessment of his match fitness. May be we could have added him as an additional player (in Indian team) before the fourth ODI as the Deodhar final is on Saturday. Players need to understand that there is a process that we follow while selecting the team,” Prasad added.
On his part, Jadhav said he had cleared his fitness tests at NCA.
“I passed all the tests and came here match fit. It is all fine. Obviously, it hurts when you are in form and get injured. It creates uncertainty on when you will get the next opportunity. And when you comeback, you have to start from scratch again as you end up missing a lot of matches. It hurts but you have to accept it and move on,” he added.