The gruelling Check tour of South Africa had completed in early January of 2007 and in direction of the top of that month, India had been enjoying West Indies in a bilateral ODI collection as a tune-up to the 50-over World Cup set to be performed within the Caribbean in a month and a half’s time. India performed 4 ODIs on January 21, 24, 27 and 31 at Nagpur, Chennai, Cuttack and Vadodara. On February 1, 4 members of that group — Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and Sourav Ganguly had been all taking a flight from Vadodara to Mumbai.
Cause? Mumbai was enjoying Ranji Trophy last in opposition to Bengal from February 2-6 and none of them needed to overlook the status battle. Tendulkar scored 100, Ganguly scored 90 and Zaheer took a bagful of wickets.
Inside 48 hours of that Ranji Trophy last, Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Zaheer needed to play an ODI worldwide collection in opposition to Sri Lanka. “Workload administration” was but to turn into a speaking level at the moment.
The Indian group that was blanked 0-3 by New Zealand at dwelling on Sunday had seniors who had been exempted from enjoying Duleep Trophy regardless of having an honest break after the the T20 World Cup with solely a three-match ODI collection in opposition to Sri Lanka within the interim.
Save Jasprit Bumrah, whose injury-prone physique and distinctive expertise demand workload administration, questions are noe being raised as to why the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja opted out of Duleep Trophy.
“In gruelling warmth of second week of April, within the yr 2000, he performed Ranji Trophy semi-final for Mumbai in opposition to Tamil Nadu and scored a double hundred in a primary innings chase of practically 500,” former India opener Devang Gandhi, who had been a nationwide selector between 2017 to 2021, recalled whereas speaking to PTI.
“In one other three days, he was enjoying the Ranji last in opposition to Hyderabad group which had Mohammed Azharuddin and VVS Laxman and scored a fifty and 100. Tendulkar performed Ranji semi-final and last in an area of two weeks in April after enjoying ODIs until finish of March,” added the previous participant.
For the file, the final Ranji Trophy recreation that Kohli performed was in Ghaziabad in opposition to Uttar Pradesh in 2012 (Group B, November 2-5), a match that additionally featured Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ashish Nehra, Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina, Mohammed Kaif and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Maybe one of many final star-studded video games ever performed in Ranji Trophy.
Rohit’s final Ranji Trophy match for Mumbai was in 2015.
After that, each have performed one first-class recreation every — Kohli for India A earlier than a tour of Sri Lanka (2017) and Rohit for India A earlier than a house collection in opposition to South Africa (2019) when he was set to open in Checks.
Tendulkar performed 310 first-class video games together with his 200 Checks. So, the maestro performed 110 first-class matches, together with tour video games, in 24 years regardless of his hectic worldwide schedule. His final Ranji Trophy recreation was in 2013 (vs Haryana at Lahli in October).
Compared, Kohli has performed 32 first-class video games and Rohit gala’s a shade higher with 61 matches in 18 years of first-class cricket since 2006.
However to be honest, the Tendulkars, Laxmans, Dravids and Gangulys, of their prime, did not have two months of IPL and T20 Internationals engagements which the present era performs. Rohit has performed 448 profession T20 video games whereas Kohli is one wanting 400.
“Clearly workload is vital and so is relaxation,” Gandhi mentioned.
“However for batters, should you realise that you’re not in better of kind, you need to take recourse to home cricket. I consider one Duleep Trophy recreation may have been performed,” Gandhi reasoned.
In distinction, Former chairman of selectors MSK Prasad believes it’s unfair to match the 2 eras given the quantity of cricket being performed now.
“It’s in contrast to Kapil paaji and Sunny sir’s days, quantity of cricket has elevated exponentially. It takes loads out of cricketers,” Prasad mentioned.
“I believe, the one-off Irani Cup match is the place the BCCI could make it obligatory for stars to indicate up for the Remainder of India group however they’ve to fit it at a time which isn’t overlapping with a Check collection,” he urged.
Prasad additionally felt that there ought to be a structured rotation coverage in place to handle workloads, one thing that the committee led by him launched between 2017 and 2021.
“I have no idea why the rotation system began by us to make sure breaks for gamers has been executed away with, you didn’t want all the celebs to play in opposition to Bangladesh,” he mentioned.
The BCCI had emphasised on the necessity for giant gamers to indicate up for home engagements a couple of months in the past however on the similar time, the Board allowed them to skip Duleep Trophy, which came about earlier than the two-Check rubber in opposition to Bangladesh.
“Champion gamers are very self conscious people. (However) Typically a nudge is required to assist them. Having mentioned this, the expectation must be set from the suitable stakeholders on the very begin to keep away from awkward conditions,” mentioned one other former selector Jatin Paranjpe, placing the onus on the Board.
Probably the best way ahead for the Board board will likely be to make it obligatory for the Indian group members (until somebody is injured) to play at the very least one or two home video games earlier than a serious Check collection.
The ‘India Cricket’ season which runs from October to March will at all times have Ranji Trophy overlapping with some dwelling Check collection until the group travels to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa throughout the identical interval.
“A great way is to schedule a house Check collection in such a way that at the very least one or two Ranji rounds precede it as an alternative of working parallelly, which has been the case all this whereas,” Prasad mentioned.
Subjects talked about on this article
( headline and story edited by our employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
