BCCI secretary Jay Shah replied regarding India captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s absence for the upcoming Duleep Trophy on Thursday, August 15. While taking the example of Australia and England, Shah said that the two senior players would also be prone to injury. However, his comments came as Team India are set to play 10 Tests from September to January, beginning with a two-match Test series against Bangladesh as well.
England’s Test captain Ben Stokes recently played for his county side Durham in the County Championship as well. The veteran, however, sustained a hamstring injury in The Hundred. Meanwhile, the reigning World Test Championship (WTC) winning captain Pat Cummins is likely to play in the Sheffield Shield ahead of the all-important Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India, reported ESPNcricinfo.
“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,” Jay Shah as quoted by saying to ANI.
However, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have not played domestic cricket since 2012 and 2016, respectively as well.
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.
However, the Duleep Trophy will take place from September 5 in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, and M Chinnswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
