International Calendar Packed But Seniors Also Need To Show 'Intent' For Ranji Trophy

gruelling Test tour of South Africa had finished in early January of 2007 and towards end of that month, India were playing West Indies in a bilateral ODI series as a tune-up to 50-over World Cup set to be played in Caribbean in a month and a half's time.

India played four ODIs on January 21, 24, 27 and 31 at Nagpur, Chennai, Cuttack and Vadodara.

On February 1, four members of that team -- Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and Sourav Ganguly were all taking a flight from Vadodara to Mumbai.

Reason? Mumbai was playing Ranji Trophy final against Bengal from February 2-6 and ne of m wanted to miss prestige battle. Tendulkar scored a hundred, Ganguly scored 90 and Zaheer took a bagful of wickets.

Within 48 hours of that Ranji Trophy final, Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Zaheer had to play an ODI international series against Sri Lanka. "Workload manment" was yet to become a talking point at that time.

Indian team that was blanked 0-3 by New Zealand at home on Sunday had seniors who were exempted from playing Duleep Trophy despite having a decent break after T20 World Cup with only a three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka in interim.

Save Jasprit Bumrah , whose injury-prone body and exceptional skills demand workload manment, questions are w being raised as to why likes of Virat Kohli , Rohit Sharma , R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja opted out of Duleep Trophy.

"In gruelling heat of second week of April, in year 2000, he played Ranji Trophy semi-final for Mumbai against Tamil Nadu and scored a double hundred in a first innings chase of nearly 500," former India opener Devang Gandhi, who had been a national selector between 2017 to 2021, recalled while talking to PTI.

"In ar three days, he was playing Ranji final against Hyderabad team which had Mohammed Azharuddin and VVS Laxman and scored a fifty and a hundred. Tendulkar played Ranji semi-final and final in a of two weeks in April after playing ODIs till end of March," added former player.

For record, last Ranji Trophy game that Kohli played was in Ghaziabad against Uttar Pradesh in 2013, a match that also featured Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir , Ashish Nehra, Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina, Mohammed Kaif and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Perhaps one of last star-studded games ever played in Ranji Trophy.

Rohit's last Ranji Trophy match for Mumbai was in 2015.

After that, both have played one first-class game each -- Kohli for India A before a tour of Sri Lanka (2017) and Rohit for India A before a home series against South Africa (2019) when he was set to open in Tests.

Tendulkar played 310 first-class games including his 200 Tests. So, maestro played 110 first-class matches, including tour games, in 24 years despite his hectic international schedule.

In comparison, Kohli has played 32 first-class games and Rohit fairs a shade better with 61 matches in 18 years of first-class cricket since 2006.

But to be fair, Tendulkars, Laxmans, Dravids and Gangulys, in ir prime, didn't have two months of IPL and T20 Internationals engments which current generation plays. Rohit has played 448 career T20 games while Kohli is one short of 400.

"Obviously workload is important and so is rest," Gandhi said.

"But for batters, if you realise that you are t in best of form, you have to take recourse to domestic cricket. I believe one Duleep Trophy game could have been played," Gandhi reasoned.

In contrast, Former chairman of selectors MSK Prasad believes it is unfair to compare two eras given amount of cricket being played w.

"It is unlike Kapil paaji and Sunny sir's days, volume of cricket has increased exponentially. It takes a lot out of cricketers," Prasad said.

"I think, one-off Irani Cup match is where BCCI can make it mandatory for stars to show up for Rest of India team but y have to slot it at a time which is t overlapping with a Test series," he suggested.

Prasad also felt that re should be a structured rotation policy in place to man workloads, something that committee led by him introduced between 2017 and 2021.

"I do t kw why rotation system started by us to ensure breaks for players has been done away with, you did t need all stars to play against Bangladesh ," he said.

BCCI had emphasised on need for big players to show up for domestic engments a few months ago but at same time, Board allowed m to skip Duleep Trophy, which took place before two-Test rubber against Bangladesh.

"Champion players are very self-aware individuals. (But) Sometimes a nudge is required to help m. Having said this, expectation needs to be set from right stakeholders at very start to avoid awkward situations," said ar former selector Jatin Paranjpe, putting onus on Board.

Possibly way forward for Board will be to make it mandatory for Indian team members (unless someone is injured) to play at least one or two domestic games before a major Test series.

'India Cricket' season which runs from October to March will always have Ranji Trophy overlapping with some home Test series unless team travels to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa during same period.

"A good way is to schedule a home Test series in such a manner that at least one or two Ranji rounds precede it instead of running parallelly, which has been case all this while," Prasad said.