The India Sarfaraz Khan, who was left off of India's senior Test team by the selectors, will have a point to prove to them when his club faces the England Lions in Canterbury later today. Ajit Agarkar, chairman of the BCCI's selection committee, announced India's 18-member team that will travel to England to compete in five Tests, starting on June 20 at Headingley, Leeds, with himself and Shreyas Iyer being the two prominent exceptions.

The subtleties behind the decision-making are unknown to anyone other than the selectors and head coach Gautam Gambhir, particularly since two positions have become available with the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Both Iyer and Sarfaraz, who represented India at the highest level as recently as last year, were expected to be sure selections, but the selection panel obviously disagreed and chose a different course. Sai Sudharsan received his first Test call-up, while Karun Nair was brought back after an eight-year hiatus, leaving Sarfaraz and Iyer in the dark.

'The buzz centers on Karun Nair'

But former India pacer Atul Wassan believes that their downfall may have been caused by the impression that neither of them can perform well in England. Iyer has scored 75 runs in three Test matches in SENA countries, but Sarfaraz has only played six Test matches for India since his teary debut last year. Therefore, according to Wassan, it was certain that Sarfaraz and Iyer would not have been successful, even though there is no assurance that Sudharsan and Nair will be.

"It's some sort of perception that the player won't perform, even though Sarfaraz scored three fifties and a hundred, but didn't get a single opportunity in Australia. Similarly, Shreyas Iyer was not chosen because some people think he hasn't played well in red-ball cricket. Karun Nair is also the topic of conversation. Sometimes, the team follows their intuition and makes predictions about a specific player's performance based on it," he stated on the 12th episode of the OTTPlay series, Bails and Banter.

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