The BCCI recently named four squads for the upcoming Duleep Trophy featuring stars like KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja. The speculations were rife that the board would instruct every player to play in domestic competitions during the international breaks, but it seems some players are immune to it. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami (injured) and Hardik Pandya were the exceptions BCCI made while announcing the four squads for the upcoming red-ball competition.

Bumrah's absence was justified as it is crucial for the selectors to manage his workload considering his fitness concerns in recent times, while Pandya has not played in Test cricket since 2018. However, the absence of Rohit and Kohli raised eyebrows as a long red-ball season awaits India with the Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Australia series.

Batting great Sunil Gavaskar raised concern over Rohit and Kohli's absence from the Duleep Trophy squads by pointing out that they will play in the Bangladesh Test series without much match practice.

“The selectors have not picked the skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for the Duleep Trophy so they will most likely go into the Bangladesh Test series without much match practice,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for the mid-day.

Gavaskar asserted that when a player hit their mid-thirties, it becomes difficult for them to maintain high standards as their muscle memory starts getting weak and the only way to counter that is playing regular cricket.

“While it’s understandable that somebody like Jasprit Bumrah with his delicate back needs to be handled with care, the batters could have done with some batting time out in the middle. Once a player hits the mid-thirties in any sport, then regular competition will help him maintain the high standards he has set. When there’s a longish gap then the muscle memory weakens somewhat and to get back to the high standards from earlier is not easy,” he added.

Doesn’t make sense to add to Virat and Rohit’s load: Shah

Meanwhile, Kohli has not played in red-ball cricket since January as he missed the England Tests due to personal reasons, while Rohit last featured in a Test match in March.

Earlier, BCCI secretary Jay Shah justified the reason for not picking Rohit and Kohli and suggested that they don’t want them to pick up injuries playing domestic cricket as long red-ball season awaits the Indian team.

“It doesn’t make sense to add to Virat and Rohit’s load by asking them to play domestic cricket. They run the risk of getting injured,” Shah had told The Times of India.

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