Following the announcement of the Indian squad for the upcoming 2024 T20 World Cup, people in Tamil Nadu came out in protest over the exclusion of left-arm medium pacer T Natarajan.
Tamil Nadu Minister for Industries TRB Raaja, son of veteran DMK leader TR Baalu, also expressed his anguish after the pacer got snubbed.
Rajaa said that Natarajan not finding a place in the Indian team was unfortunate. "Good to see this being discussed widely! Consistently performing TN athletes have many a time been denied their rightful place by "Delhi" ! This is happening more often now BUT is beyond regimes. This is just how myopically "Delhi" operates in many sports. "Delhi" has MOST of the time turned a blind eye to many immensely talented athletes from the south ! Many Athletes cutting across sports AND ideological bearings KNOW this ! Glad Badri Spoke his mind. Natarajan and our other boys TRULY deserve better," the state industries minister said in a post on social media platform ’X’.
Former Indian Test player and one of the most prolific run scorers in domestic cricket for Tamil Nadu, S Badrinath in a local Tamil Television show on Tuesday night also expressed his disappointment on Natarajan's exclusion from the World Cup squad.
He said that Natarajan was performing extremely well and had fetched good number of wickets in the IPL season.
He added, players from Tamil Nadu had to perform double than those from other regions to get into the Indian team. He said that he himself was a victim of such discrimination in the Indian team.
In the ongoing IPL season, Natarajan has 13 wickets in seven games for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
A Tamil Nadu Ranji trophy player who did not want to be named has said, "Natarajan is performing at his peak and he is much above the two pacers selected in the team, Mohammed Siraj and Arshdeep Singh. While Singh got 11 wickets in the current IPL , Siraj has only 6 wickets.”
"We don’t know why the team is announced without Natarajan who is a lethal left arm pacer in any cricket format. He would have been a real pair to Bumrah in the team," he added.
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