India’s stars – aspiring and established – brace themselves for the hardships of domestic cricket
After what seems like an eternity – maybe it is because it really is – some of the biggest active names in Indian cricket will gather under one umbrella to showcase their prowess in domestic cricket. This in itself shouldn’t be news, but if it is, it’s because the domestic game is being given less importance than those who have transcended that level and gone on to represent the country.
This year’s Duleep Trophy, or at least its first round, will see many big players in action from the four teams picked by the national selectors ahead of the international domestic season starting in Chennai on September 19. India will host Bangladesh for two Tests and three Twenty20 Internationals, then take on New Zealand in three more Tests, after which they will head to Australia for their first five-Test tie since 1991-92.
India played their last Test match against England in Dharamsala in the first week of March. Since then, there has been a string of T20 cricket – IPL, T20 World Cup, a five-match tour of Zimbabwe and three matches in Sri Lanka – which only ended with a three-match ODI series, in which the Indians lost 0-2 to Sri Lanka earlier this month.
In such a scenario, the first round of the Duleep Trophy, starting on September 5, is for players who are vying for a place in the Test team and who aspire to make it or return to their only meaningful red-ball, first-class competitive game before the first Test against Bangladesh. Some players are trying to improve their game in the ongoing Buchi Babu Trophy tournament in Tamil Nadu, but there is nothing like a first-class game to rekindle the red-ball passion.
Notable absences
Notable players absent from the Duleep Trophy include Test and ODI captain Rohit Sharma, his predecessor Virat Kohli, pacer Jasprit Bumrah and off-spin great R Ashwin. They are exceptions to the rule; in recent times, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has read out the riot act, which is mandatory for those available to play domestically. Things shouldn’t have been like this, but with players prioritising international and franchise cricket at the expense of playing for their respective states, the governing body had no choice but to intervene. The exclusion of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan from the list of centrally contracted players for failing to play for Mumbai and Jharkhand respectively in the Ranji Trophy was the clearest indication that dereliction of duty will come at a cost.
You know, it wasn’t always like this. Even till the early 2000s, little attention was paid to Sachin Tendulkar stepping off a plane after an overseas tour and donning a Mumbai jersey, or Rahul Dravid or Anil Kumble doing the same for Karnataka. It was through state versus state and region versus region contests that the road to the national team opened up. Players never thought they were doing anyone a favour by representing their state at every available opportunity. Since some of the brightest stars were playing, fans flocked to the ground in large numbers. Though it has now become fashionable to decry the lack of interest of spectators in the domestic game, it is perhaps not hard to see why fans stay away. After all, if that is what players want to do, who can blame spectators, since even venues hosting international games are underfunded in terms of infrastructure?
Over the years, some big players have played in the Ranji Trophy only when they were trying to make a comeback, or when they had to prove their match readiness after being sidelined due to injury. Ashwin is one of the few honourable exceptions; he loves nothing more than playing the game of cricket, any game of cricket. For the rest, returning to the ‘hard’ conditions of domestic cricket is a punishment of sorts. Privately, many players have spoken about a lack of ‘motivation’ to play at a lower level than international cricket, but how motivation (or lack of it) can be a factor when one is representing the unit that helped him reach the highest level is hard to understand.
vice versa
It is true that the domestic game needs superstars, but it is equally true that even established names need domestic experience. One of the reasons for the gradual decline in standards when it comes to playing decent spin bowling on helpful pitches is that most players who play regularly in Test cricket rarely face such pitches and hence their game against spin deteriorates when they become semi-permanent players in the Test set-up.
In the national team scenario, there is a greater emphasis on strengthening one’s technique against fast bowling, which is the staple diet that batsmen will face when travelling to England and Australia and South Africa and New Zealand. Fast, bouncy pitches for batsmen are rare in India, so it becomes imperative that when they get together as the Indian team, they leave no stone unturned to prepare for the unfamiliar, daunting challenges that lie ahead. This is something Dravid mentioned many years ago; many Indian Test batsmen had to make a conscious effort to retain the muscle memory of batting against spin. Even if they played Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh in the nets, it was on less-than-great pitches. There will be no pressure to score or stay put, which could subconsciously lead to a drop in intensity and concentration. Despite all that, if Dravid and VVS Laxman and Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag and current head coach Gautam Gambhir all played spin of the highest quality with total ease, it certainly did not happen by chance.
Perhaps this Duleep Trophy game is just a match and so it would be presumptuous to call it the beginning of a trend, but it cannot be ignored that BCCI secretary Jay Shah and Rohit and Gambhir, after becoming head coaches, have made a commitment to the domestic game. So, players not included in the Test team will have to return to the ‘hard work’ of state vs state contests and if they have to do so, will have to dig deep to find the motivation that comes naturally in any case. This will mean more interest among fans, and perhaps even better facilities, such as where matches are played and what kind of pitches are made. Currently, domestic cricket is dangerously close to falling into the realm of ‘formality’, but it is precisely this phase that has given Indian cricket its vibrancy, and it should be treated with the respect and reverence it deserves, rather than discarded as an afterthought as it has been the case for the last several seasons.
Perhaps, there is a case for the four players who have been exempted from Duleep to have also rediscovered their red-ball magic. Kohli has not had a good time in international cricket in 2024, with just one half-century in 15 innings, the other being his Player of the Final-winning 76 in the T20 World Cup in late June. In his only Test match this year, he made 46 and 12 on an extremely poor surface in Cape Town. That match ended on January 4 and Kohli did not play in the five-Test home series against England as he was on paternity leave; by the time of the first encounter against Bangladesh, eight-and-a-half months would have passed since his last Test match.
All three of Rohit, Bumrah and Ashwin played the aforementioned Tests against England. Maybe they too needed a run out, though like Kohli, since they will be a key part of India’s challenge for a long season, the decision-makers collectively felt it was better for them to be well-rested physically and refreshed mentally. It’s not like they have anything to prove – neither form, nor fitness or commitment and passion – and so maybe it’s because of fitness that those four slots have been given to youngsters who would be thrilled at the opportunity to bowl to Shubman Gill or Yashasvi Jaiswal or face Mohammed Siraj or Kuldeep Yadav.
The first indication of what the presence of stars can do to domestic cricket is the move to move one of the first round matches to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. It is more or less certain that broadcasters had some hand in the move, but still, it is the kind of victory that has flown under the radar in recent times. Whether fans will come to the stands or not is a different matter, but if batsmen, especially, play for their respective states during international cricket, it will certainly revive the game to a level that is only two notches below the highest level.