“They will risk injury” – Jay Shah’s blunt reply to Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s absence for Duleep Trophy
BCCI secretary Jay Shah came up with a straightforward reply regarding India captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s absence for the Duleep Trophy on Thursday, August 15. While taking the example of Australia and England, Shah added that the two senior players would've been prone to injury.
The statement came as Team India are set to play 10 Tests from September to January, beginning with a two-match Test series against Bangladesh.
Notably, England’s Test captain Ben Stokes recently played for his county side Durham in the County Championship. The ace all-rounder, however, sustained a hamstring injury in The Hundred.
Meanwhile, reigning World Test Championship (WTC) winning captain Pat Cummins is likely to play in the Sheffield Shield before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India, reported ESPNcricinfo.
Jay Shah was quoted as saying by ANI (via The Times of India):
"We should not insist on players like Rohit and Virat to play in the Duleep Trophy. They will risk injury. If you have noticed, in Australia and England, every international player does not play domestic cricket. We have to treat the players with respect.”
Kohli and Rohit have not played domestic cricket since 2012 and 2016, respectively.
"Apart from them, everyone else is playing” – Jay Shah on India players’ participation in Duleep Trophy and Buchi Babu tournament ahead of IND vs BAN Tests
Jay Shah further pointed out that almost every international player is taking part in the Duleep Trophy. He said in the same interaction:
"Apart from them, everyone else is playing. You should appreciate that.”
Shah also lauded Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer’s participation in the Buchi Babu tournament, adding:
“One must note that Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer are playing in the Buchi Babu tournament."
Notably, Kishan is leading Jharkhand in the tournament, while Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav will represent Mumbai against Jammu & Kashmir in one game, which starts in Coimbatore on August 27.
Here’s a complete list of players taking part in the Duleep Trophy:
Team A: Shubman Gill (C), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.
Team B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant, Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).
Team C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.
Team D: Shreyas lyer (C), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (WK), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (WK), Saurabh Kumar.
The Duleep Trophy will be played from September 5 in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, and M Chinnswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.