Former Indian batter Robin Uthappa lashed out at the team’s think tank for not backing Abhimanyu Easwaran in the Border-Gavaskar trophy against Australia. Easwaran was part of the squad but he didn’t get a single match on the tour.

Surprisingly, Devdutt Padikkal, who was not even part of the initial squad, was given a chance in the opening Test in the absence of Rohit Sharma after he scored 151 runs in four innings for India A whereas Dhruv Jurel played in place of injured Shubman Gill.

Meanwhile, Easwaran failed to impress while playing for India A against Australia A before the Border-Gavaskar trophy. The right-hander scored 36 runs in four innings at an average of nine. However, the 29-year-old has scored 7674 runs in 101 first-class matches at an impressive average of 48.87.

“He is scoring 1000 runs in every year in the domestic cricket. If you are not playing him then don’t give the false hope to that person,” he said in his interview with The Lallantop.

“Abhimanyu Easwaran could have become a Pujara on this tour. He didn’t get any chance. Just tell him on the face that you don’t belong to the international cricket and you keep scoring runs in domestic cricket,” Uthappa added.

Uthappa compared Easwaran’s position with Karun Nair as the Karnataka batter was dropped despite scoring a triple century against England.

“There are so many players, Karun Nair was dropped after scoring a triple century. He didn’t do well in the two Tests and he was dropped. It was a shocker,” he said.

Meanwhile, Cheteshwar Pujara played a key role in India’s previous two tours’ success and Uthappa believes the absence of solid right-hander was a big miss.

“Not taking Cheteshwar Pujara to Australia was a big miss. They could have picked someone like the caliber of Pujara,” he said.

India will next take on England in five-match T20I series.