 "From skipper Rohit to Pant and Gill, how India's A-listers are taking Ranji Trophy more seriously after Australia debacle")
The recent Test debacles against New Zealand at home and against Pat Cummins’ men in Australia has had quite the impact on Team India. Indian cricket had witnessed one of its highest points after Rohit Sharma and company won the T20 World Cup in the United States and the Caribbean last summer, leading to a hero’s welcome back home in the form of an open-top bus parade in Mumbai's Marine Drive and a felicitation ceremony at the Wankhede Stadium .
Less than a year later, the two-time ODI and T20 world champions and former top-ranked Test nation finds itself at one of its lowest points ever. After suffering a historic 0-3 whitewash against New Zealand at home, Team India surrendered the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to Australia for the first time in a decade after a 1-3 series defeat. Not only are stalwarts of the game such as Rohit and Virat Kohli horribly out of form, the dressing room is also said to be a fractured one, in which the captain and head coach Gautam Gambhir aren’t seeing eye to eye.
It was only a matter of time before the BCCI cracked the whip on the Indian team for their decline; not only has the board placed restrictions on wives and girlfriends accompanying players on foreign tours and made it mandatory for the team to travel together, they are also planning to introduce performance-based pay cuts.
Several former cricketers including legendary names such as Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar have also advised senior cricketers such as Rohit and Kohli to regain their form in domestic cricket before making another appearance in the five-day format. And after their disastrous performances in Tests in the last three months – as a team as well as individually – Indian cricketers are finally beginning to take the domestic game seriously again.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsRohit sets the tone by training with Mumbai
Pacer Mohammed Shami was among the first of India’s senior cricketers to return to domestic cricket, representing Bengal in the Ranji Trophy as well as in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Shami, though, was playing domestic fixtures in order to prove his fitness and facilitate his return to international cricket as an ankle injury and a subsequent surgery has kept him out of action for more than a year.
Coming to the cricketers who were part of the 10 Tests India played between September and January, captain Rohit made headlines recently after attending a training session with defending Ranji champions Mumbai – led by long-time India teammate Ajinkya Rahane.
ROHIT SHARMA HAS ARRIVED AT THE WANKHEDE TO PRACTICE. (Revsportz).pic.twitter.com/ADbzh2MiF9
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) January 14, 2025
The ‘Hitman’, whose last domestic appearance was in the 2016 Duleep Trophy for India Blue, initially "expressed his interest" to Mumbai coach Omkar Salvi shortly after attending a BCCI meeting with coach Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar . And on Tuesday, Rohit was spotted at the Wankhede Stadium with his kit bag, arriving at the iconic venue for Mumbai’s training session for their upcoming fixture against Jammu and Kashmir.
It’s worth noting that Rohit has only trained with Mumbai, and that he has not committed to playing any of their remaining group fixtures – against J&K and Meghalaya starting 23 and 30 January respectively.
Pant, Gill, Jaiswal to play upcoming fixtures; Kohli remains non-committal
Former India captain Kohli had also been advised to return to domestic cricket after a lean patch that saw the batting superstar repeatedly get dismissed by nicking the ball outside the off stump throughout the Australia tour.
Kohli has not played any form of domestic cricket since the Delhi vs Uttar Pradesh Ranji fixture in Ghaziabad in November 2012 that had featured current coach Gambhir as well as batting legend Virender Sehwag and pacers Ashish Nehra and Ishant Sharma – the latter still an active cricketer.
Also Read | When was the last time Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah, and Pant played a domestic game in India?
The 36-year-old, however, has been included in Delhi’s probables list for the remainder of the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy along wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant and pacer Harshit Rana, who had recently made his Test debut in the first Test against Australia in Perth.
Kohli, like Rohit, is yet to confirm his participation in Delhi’s upcoming Ranji fixtures. Pant, whose last Ranji appearance was against Vidarbha in 2017, has confirmed his availability to the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) for their upcoming fixture against Saurashtra in Rajkot starting 23 January.
Top-order batters Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill too will be part of the action when India’s flagship domestic event returns to action a week from now. Jaiswal, who India’s standout batter and the second-highest run-scorer overall in the tour of Australia, has confirmed his availability for Mumbai’s fixture against Jammu and Kashmir.
Gill, who couldn’t convert multiple promising starts into bigger scores in Australia, will feature in Punjab's next game against Karnataka , whose Mayank Agarawal-led squad comprises pacer Prasidh Krishna and batter Devdutt Padikkal, both of whom had featured in five-match Test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
The final round of group fixtures in the Ranji Trophy will be getting underway on 23 and 30 January respectively, concluding on 2 February – four days before the ODI series against England gets underway. With Rohit, Kohli and the rest of the senior cricketers expected to feature in the one-dayers against England, it is highly unlikely India’s A-listers will be able to participate in the Ranji quarter-finals that get underway on 8 February.
The Ranji semi-finals (17-21 February) and the final (26 February-2 March) will then be coinciding with the ICC Champions Trophy, making it virtually impossible for India’s stars to participate unless they are excluded by the Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee when they announce the squad later this weekend.
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