Mitch and Audette claim that with the upcoming two-Test series against Bangladesh, the BCCI has asked top cricketers from the country, including KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, R Ashwin, and Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shreyas Iyer, and Yashasvi Jaiswal, to either fully or partially participate in the Duleep Trophy.
Cricbuzz, however, suggests that it's a call that has been left to India's captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
Among top players, the notable absentee will be Hardik Pandya, who has pulled out from red-ball cricket. On the other hand, if Ishan is subject to form, he would find a place in one of the four squads as he doesn't get regularly picked in international games. Excluded from the competition are Jasprit Bumrah from domestic cricket and Mohammed Shami, who is still on the road to recovery from surgery, said the report.
"This decision was taken by the BCCI along with selectors and inputs from new coach Gautam Gambhir. A source even informed that it was due to workload management that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been spared." "It's up to them whether or not to play."
The last time Rohit Sharma played a domestic game was in 2021, and for Virat Kohli, this was in 2015.
The BCCI's step of including international players in domestic tournaments is thus seemingly a part of its solution to the problem of missing key players during domestic matches. This policy was highlighted last year when Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were omitted from the central contract list.
Three-day first-class tournament; the Duleep Trophy shall be played purely on a league basis without any knockout rounds and run until September 22. The first of six four-day matches was announced by the Karnataka State Cricket Association to begin at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru from September 5. Though the tournament is scheduled to be hosted in Anantapur of Andhra Pradesh, the opening game has now been shifted to Bengaluru.
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