BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has stated that Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara will be expected to score a lot of runs after going back to Ranji Trophy, and score a lot of runs in the domestic tournament. Team India recently witnessed a 1-2 defeat against South Africa in the three-match Test series. The defeat in the Test series crashed India’s hope of winning a series in the rainbow nation. The middle-order batting line-up of India failed yet again, and it remains a huge concern for the team management.

The current Indian middle-order batters, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara have opened doors for fuming debates among fans and cricketing pundits after the South Africa Test series. Pujara finished the red-ball series against South Africa with just 124 runs from three matches, while Rahane managed to score only 136 runs in six innings.

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Meanwhile, Sourav Ganguly has stated that Rahane and Pujara will go back to the Ranji Trophy, and urged them to score a lot of runs in domestic cricket. In 2005, after facing a rough patch, Ganguly had gone back to play Ranji Trophy and amassed a plethora of runs in the domestic tournament.

During a recent chat with Sportstar, Sourav Ganguly said, “Yeah, they are very good players. Hopefully, they will go back to Ranji Trophy and score a lot of runs, which I am sure they will. I don’t see any problem [for them to go back to domestic cricket after playing so much international cricket]. So, they, too, will go back there and perform. They have played the tournament in the past when they were only playing Test cricket and were not part of the ODI or limited-overs team.”

This season, Ranji Trophy will be played in two phases due to the pandemic situation in India. The first phase is scheduled to be commencing, and the knockouts will be played after the conclusion of the IPL 2022. Ganguly stated it was a challenge to organize the tournament, but considering the importance of domestic tournaments in India, the BCCI has gone forward with it.

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Explaining the same, Sourav Ganguly said, “Obviously, we missed one year of Ranji Trophy – the 2020-21 season. It is the most important tournament in India, and we always wanted to organize it. So keeping all these things in mind, it was actually a challenge to organize any tournament. We still have our fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly.”