‘I need bad guy image, tattoos, relationship with actresses’: Badrinath’s scandalous statement after Ruturaj Gaikwad’s rejection

The BCCI on Thursday announced the much-awaited Indian white-ball squads for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka, which will mark the beginning of Gautam Gambhir’s tenure as the team’s head coach. While Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli returned to the ODI format for the tournament, the biggest story was the appointment of Suryakumar Yadav as the new T20I skipper.

While there have been call-ups for a few, another major point of interest has been the absence of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Abhishek Sharma from the T20I squad despite their strong performances in the series against Zimbabwe earlier this month. Additionally, Rinku Singh continues to await an ODI call-up despite strong calls for him to be included in the fifty-plus set-up.

As Team India prepares to travel to the island nation for three T20Is and as many ODIs, former India batsman Subramaniam Badrinath made a rather controversial remark regarding Gaikwad and Rinku’s snub in the two formats. Although Gaikwad was not included in either of the two squads, Rinku retained his place in the T20I squad.

As he spoke further Debate Cric with Badri, a remark of his has gone viral on social media platforms, which seems to suggest that cricketers may need more than just performances to secure a place in the Indian team. Badrinath’s statement – originally in Tamil – was translated by many on social media platform X, and the former India batsman has since been quoted by MyKhel Tamil also.

“Sometimes it seems you need a bad guy image when the likes of Rinku Singh, Ruturaj Gaikwad and others are not selected for the Indian team. Apparently you have to be in a relationship with some Bollywood actresses, have a good media manager and have tattoos on your body,” Badrinath said in the video clip.

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While Badrinath did not name names, it is evident that the former Chennai Super Kings star is clearly frustrated by the snub of the two players he mentioned. Ruturaj Gaikwad had scores of 7, 77 and 49 in three innings against Zimbabwe and was rested for the final T20I of the series as India had already won the series.

Meanwhile, Rinku continued to produce exemplary performances in the shortest format and played crucial cameos in the Zimbabwe T20Is as well.