Sunil Gavaskar feels Sarfaraz Khan’s snub from India’s Test squad for the five-match series against England in the summer was ‘tough’ for the Mumbai batter but also a result of him not ‘cementing’ his position. Sarfaraz made his Test debut against England at home in 2024. He impressed in that series and one of the few decently performing batters during the 3-0 whitewash to New Zealand later on, including by scoring his first Test century. However, he wasn’t given a chance in the playing 11s during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in England, which India lost, and was now dropped from the squad entirely. “It’s tough, that’s what cricket is all about,” Gavaskar told Sports Tak on Saturday. “When you get opportunities, you have to make sure the place is yours. Even if you score a hundred, you should make sure that you don’t go into your next innings thinking you scored a hundred in the previous knock. You have to get your eye in and get those runs again. You must not give anybody a chance to push you out of the team. It’s entirely up to you to ensure you cement that spot. You need to keep knocking on the doors and break the doors down.” “I think it’s a tough call because after the tour of Australia, there was no red-ball cricket. Yes, there was the Ranji Trophy, but he was injured. So, he didn’t play. There was no way he could show what his form was.” You have to be undropabble. We have seen in the past, if a team loses a series, the guys who are 13th, 14th, 15th in the squad get dropped. You have to take your chances,” added Gavaskar. Sarfaraz’s absence opened a place for Karun Nair’s comeback to the Test set-up after eight years. Nair had been in exceptional form across India’s domestic competitions. Gavaskar hailed the call. “Even Jaydev played his first Test at a very young age, and then it took 13 years or so to play another Test. He persevered, he went on picking wickets in domestic cricket. Like Unadkat, Karun has scoring kept on scoring big hundreds. That’s why the selection committee had to bring him back. A man in form is one of your best bets. He is scoring runs, he also got the experience of County Championships. A very good call to bring him back to Indian cricket,” he said.