Out of favour India international, Amit Mishra remained clueless as to why he repeatedly received the axe from the selectors without proper reasoning provided to him.
After the retirement of legendary leg-spinner Anil Kumble, Mishra was earmarked to fill in the shoes of the leading wicket-taker for India.
In the limited opportunities provided at the international level, Mishra has done exceedingly well. In 22 Tests, Mishra has 76 wickets to his name, while in 36 ODIs, the 37-year old picked 64 wickets, with the record of most number of wickets in a five-match series against Zimbabwe in 2015.
The last time Mishra donned the Indian colours was back in 2017 during the T20I series against England. The Haryana leggie rued not given another opportunity to make a comeback after being injured during the England series, like other players have been, namely Wriddhiman Saha.
“I still question myself why this happened with me. No one has been able to give me a satisfactory answer. It was a rule in the team that if someone was forced out with an injury, he would come back to the team. Wriddhiman Saha made a comeback after a 1.5-year injury layoff. I don’t know why this did not happen with me,” Mishra said during his interaction with Sports Tak.
“Even when I was in form, whenever the axe needed to fall on someone, it had to be Mishra,” further added the leading Indian wicket-taker in IPL.
Also, Mishra let the cat out of the bag regarding receiving assurance from captain Virat Kohli on his national comeback. Kohli assured Mishra that he would speak to the national selectors about him.
“I have performed for India at every opportunity, even when thrown into the toughest situations,” Mishra claimed.
Further, Mishra remains hopeful of coming back into the Indian team in the T20I format, eying a place in the upcoming T20 World Cup.
“I was removed from the team at the peak of my performance because of injury,” said the Delhi Capitals’ ace spinner.
Looking back at his career, Mishra also talked about playing many more Test matches for India, provided he got the support like MS Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly. “I could have played 70-80 Test matches if I had that kind of support,” concluded Mishra.
