It’s alright that I had to wait, I was busy playing the game, says Mayank Agarwal after India selection

09/30/2018

After being selected for the Windies series, Mayank Agarwal has stated that he was occupied with playing a lot of cricket and concentrated on his game rather than wondering about his selection. Agarwal was the top scorer in the last Ranji Trophy season with a total of 1,160 runs in eight matches.

With the series against West Indies to start from October 4 and team selection already postponed once, there were a lot of rumours of another postponement but the squad was announced late on Saturday night. The right-handed Karnataka batsman, who was knocking on the selection doors for a while now, was ultimately selected, as the man of the series in the recently-concluded Asia Cup Shikhar Dhawan made way for him. While it was indeed a late call for Agarwal, he doesn’t harbour any bitterness and stated that he was occupied with cricket.

"The wait has been alright because I've been occupied playing a lot of cricket. I've been in the zone in which the focus has been on playing, I'm happy to have made it to the Test team. I am looking forward to doing well," Agarwal told TOI.

The Karnataka opener has been in fantastic form with 723 runs in the 2017 Vijay Hazare Trophy after the momentum that he got for the India ‘A’ side against England. The selectors were under pressure to pick him, looking at the fact that he has been consistent and unrelenting in scoring big runs. In fact after the Asia Cup squad was announced a selector had even said that Mayank will get his due soon, indicating his selection for the series against West Indies.

"Knowing selection is not in my control, I've stuck to doing the best I can which is, performing to the best of my ability," the 27-year-old said.

India will play two Test matches in Rajkot and Hyderabad, with the first one starting on October 4.