"God Has A Bigger Plan For Me": Indian Cricket Team Star On West Indies Tour Snub

Jitesh Sharma was one of the most consistent performers for Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 and his strike rate of 159.24 is currently the fifth highest overall for any batter with more than 500 runs in the competition. With Rishabh Pant sidelined due to injury, the Indian cricket team has been looking for a wicket-keeper batter to replace him and ahead of the West Indies tour, Jitesh's name was doing the rounds. However, the selection committee went with Ishan Kishan and Sanju Samson as the options in white-ball cricket. In a recent interaction, Jitesh opened up about missing the cut.

"Just one sentence, 'God has a bigger plan for me'," Jitesh said in an interview with Cricket.com.

Jitesh was a part of the India squad for the home series against New Zealand and Sri Lanka. He opened up about his experiences with the side and what he learnt from head coach Rahul Dravid.

"They were quite welcoming. Rahul (Dravid) sir told me that you are doing very well and these are the kind of players that we are looking for. When I told him that I want to score big runs, he told me that at the position you play, runs don't matter, impact matters. The more you contribute towards the win, that will be important for the team. When there's a collapse and you go out to bat around 7-8 overs, the team will be 4-5 wickets down, so you can't do much and just need to believe in your game. You have to take that score to a certain level so that the team can fight for it," the wicket-keeper batter added.