Domestic giants who deserve a place in the Indian cricket team
With around 2000 domestic matches among men and women annually, India is one of the top cricket playing nations in the World. Previously, twenty-eight teams participated in the multiple domestic events, but this season nine more teams have been added, making it thirty-seven.
Apart from these annually held tourney's, BCCI even organizes some foreign tours in order to give players the opportunity to test their skills outside the country.
These initiatives are highly responsible for India's success in international cricket. However, there are plenty of players who despite doing well in these domestic matches have been ignored by the national selectors. In this article, we take a look at three of them.
#1 Mayank Agarwal
Karnataka's Mayank Agarwal is one of the famous faces of Indian domestic cricket, though been unlucky to have not represented the country internationally yet.
Averaging 50.85 in List A while 49.92 in First-class cricket, Agarwal was the highest run-getter in both Ranji Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy during the 2017-18 seasons. Mayank made 1160 in 4-dayer's while as 723 runs in the one-day tournament.
The 27-year-old scored a match-winning century just a day before, in the ongoing quadrangular series, which was his 12th List-A hundred among the 65 matches.
In spite of these swashbuckling performances, Agarwal hasn't been picked by national selectors for any of the formats yet. With India's middle order facing downfall, Mayank can surely fill the voids if provided the chance.
#2 Parvez Rasool
The man of firsts from Jammu and Kashmir, Parvez Rasool is an off-spinning all-rounder who has one ODI and T20I to his name.
Parvez, with more than 70 wickets and over 13 hundred runs in the last two Ranji Trophy seasons has been provided with very rare chances to prove his mettle at the highest level.
Having taken 196 wickets in 66 First-class matches, Rasool was highly praised by the former legendary cricketer, Bishen Singh Bedi for his simple yet effective off-spin bowling.
His recent performances include a seven-wicket haul in the ongoing, Duleep Trophy which steered his side (India Red) to the finals of the tournament. He can fill the place of a spin-bowling allrounder for India as he averages 37 in First-class while a 35 in List A matches in batting as well.
#3 Shahbaz Nadeem
29-year old, Shahbaz Nadeem from Bihar's Bokaro is another unfortunate domestic specialist who hasn't played for India yet. The left-arm orthodox spinner with 56 wickets during 2016-17 Ranji Trophy is the only the sixth bowler to claim fifty or more wickets in a Ranji season.
Shahbaz whose economy is less than three in First-class, below five in List-A while under seven in T20 cricket, represents Jharkhand in domestic cricket and Delhi Daredevils in IPL.
Nadeem claimed his 15th five-wicket haul yesterday in Duleep Trophy and can be an ideal choice for India in the coming days with Jadeja having failed to do well consistently in recent times.