India head coach Gautam Gambhir delivered a strong response when questioned over Shreyas Iyer's exclusion from the upcoming Test series against England. Shubman Gill will be the leader of the five-match series, but Iyer is absent from the list of selected players. Though Iyer has performed well in One-Day Internationals and was one of the key players in India's Champions Trophy victory, he has been excluded from the Test team for the tour of England. Iyer has been in fine batting form recently and also demonstrated great leadership while representing Punjab Kings in the IPL. Punjab Kings made it to the playoffs for the first time sincen 2014. Therefore, several fans and experts were surprised to see him absent from the Test squad. Gambhir was questioned on Iyer's omission during a media interaction on Wednesday. When asked why the Mumbai batter was omitted despite performing well in the IPL and domestic cricket, Gambhir delivered a quick and crisp response. Gambhir said: "Main Selector Nahi Hun (I am not the selector)". Also Read | PBKS vs RCB Qualifier 1: Punjab Hold Edge in IPL 2025 Agarkar's Take on Iyer's Snub Ajit Agarkar, the selector chairman, had previously justified the reason for Iyer's exclusion. According to him, Iyer's recent Test outing wasn't good enough. Iyer last featured in a Test during the home series against England last year, where he had managed just 106 runs from four innings, with an average of 26. He was subsequently removed from the Test squad. Agarkar said: "Shreyas had a good one-day series, played well in domestic as well but right now there's no room in Test cricket." Thus, though Iyer has been successful in limited-overs cricket, his recent form at the Test level has kept him away from the team. India's Squad for England Tour 2025 Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc & wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav