Before the teams for the upcoming Duleep Trophy were announced—a red-ball competition that marks the beginning of India’s domestic cricket season—there were rumors that it might include many famous players from international cricket.
The selectors recently announced the four teams, which do include some of India’s best cricketers, but a few notable names are missing, such as Test captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, and Hardik Pandya.
Bumrah has been given a long break due to his previous back problems, while Shami is still recovering from an ankle injury. Meanwhile, Pandya hasn’t played in first-class cricket since December 2018, as he has focused on his career in limited-over matches because of his own injury history.
However, Rohit and Kohli have not been selected.
The reason is that, according to BCCI secretary Jay Shah, choosing them doesn’t make sense, and they don’t want them to get injured in domestic cricket with important Test matches coming up, including a five-match series in Australia.
“It’s not a good idea to make Virat and Rohit play more games in local cricket because they might get hurt,” Shah said in an interview with The Times of India.
But famous cricket player Sunil Gavaskar has a different opinion. He believes that Rohit and Kohli are not young anymore and it will be harder for them to stay at their best compared to when they were younger.
Gavaskar believes that both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli might have benefited from playing in the Duleep Trophy, which begins on September 5.
“The selectors didn’t choose Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for the Duleep Trophy, so they will probably enter the Bangladesh Test series without much practice in actual games,” Gavaskar mentioned in his column for mid-day.
“It’s clear that someone like Jasprit Bumrah, who has a sensitive back, needs careful handling, but the batters could have used some time at the crease. Once a player reaches their mid-thirties in any sport, regular competition helps them keep up their high performance levels. If there’s a long break, muscle memory can weaken, and it’s tough to return to the high standards they previously set,” he further explained.
Rohit last played a Test match in March of this year, and Kohli in January. Both players have been consistently participating in limited-overs cricket and have recently stated their decision to stop playing T20 Internationals.
These two players will return to the field for the Test series against Bangladesh starting next month.
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