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How IPL Is Undermining The Importance Of Ranji Trophy In Indian Domestic Cricket
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After a disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, a lot has changed for the Men In Blue. As announced ahead of the multi-nation tournament, Virat Kohli has given up T20 captaincy, Rohit Sharma has taken his place and batting legend Rahul Dravid has replaced Ravi Shastri as the new head coach.
But there is one thing that hasn’t changed, the who perform year after year to stake a claim in India’s red-ball squad.
Ranji season 2018/19 scored 854 and 2019/2020 scored 809 and also Ranji champion that year plus this year current formyet not getting picked even for India A team.can selector tell him what else he need to do to ply for india apart from scoring runs #shame @ShelJackson27 pic.twitter.com/HcwQDwhGsZ
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) November 9, 2021
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) recently announced the T20 and Test squad for the upcoming home series against New Zealand and many fans and experts felt that the selectors didn’t consider players’ Ranji Trophy performance, which is India’s premier first-class tournament, while picking the squad for the home series in the new World Test Championship cycle.
After being on the road for the last six months, a lot of senior players like Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant have been handed the much-needed break.
Many expected it would open up a chance for the players like Jaydev Unadkat and Rahul Dalal who led the bowling and batting charts respectively in the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy to be rewarded for a terrific domestic season but it wasn’t the case.
More than first-class cricket, the national selection panel led by former fast bowler Chetan Sharma gave more impetus to players’ IPL heroics and it reflected in the choices they made. Wicketkeeper-batter KS Bharat, who impressed for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the second half of the IPL was picked in the 16-member squad.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s is no doubt that IPL being the biggest T20 league in the world has played a major role in the growth and development of our raw talents by providing them with a chance to rub shoulders with some the world’s greatest cricketers by sharing the same dressing room and pick on their brains.
One good performance and you become an overnight star. Ask Rahul Tewatia who became a household name after dispatching Sheldon Cottrell for five consecutive sixes and winning the match from the jaws of defeat in last year’s IPL at Sharjah.
The selectors picking IPL heroes in India’s limited-overs makes sense, but it’s hard to understand why they keep ignoring the domestic performances while announcing the Test team.
Another top player not getting his dues @mandeeps12 forget team India not even in India A.selectors need to see some domestic matches records or else what’s th point having Ranji seasons.check his stats last domestic season played.due to corona no cricket in 20/21 #shocking pic.twitter.com/UotDWxux11
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) November 9, 2021
The Ranji Trophy didn’t take place last year due to the coronavirus pandemic but if we look at the last two seasons, the players who piled runs match after match and picked heaps of wickets didn’t get the reward they deserved. Instead, batters who shot to fame after playing a couple of good knocks or bowlers who delivered a couple of good spells are the first ones to get a national call-up.
While we know almost every single player who plays in the IPL, how many of us are aware of Sikkim’s Milind Kumar who amassed 1,331 runs in just 14 innings in the 2018-19 season or Rahul Dalal of Arunachal Pradesh who scored 1,340 runs in the following season.
Bihar’s Ashutosh Aman clinched 68 wickets in just eight matches but his hard work went unnoticed and the same fate was reserved for Jaydev Unadkat who not only picked up 67 wickets but also guided Saurashtra to their maiden Ranji Trophy last year.
We blame our young cricketers for giving IPL more importance than Ranji Trophy and other dometic tournaments. But is it really their fault?
Just imagine you are a budding cricketer and you see such discrimination happening right in front of your eyes, what would you do?
Wouldn’t you also choose IPL over domestic cricket? Why would you want to toil hard in four-day cricket for the fraction of money knowing that you can make a lot more by playing only two months of franchise cricket?
More importantly, if we were them even we would choose IPL not only because of money but also because it was the fastest way of realising your dream of entering the Indian dressing room.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) medium pacer Deepak Chahar came to terms with this harsh truth a few years back and guess where he is now. He realised that even if he played and did well in Ranji Trophy and other domestic tournaments, it wouldn’t get him close to achieving his dream of playing for India whereas if he performed in the IPL, it would help him realise his dream much faster and looking at how things panned out, he wasn’t wrong.
“When I changed my action to gain speed, I struggled with my state team. Now suddenly, I found that my road towards entering the Indian team to be very difficult. If I had to take the Ranji route, then I would have had to play more matches, play a whole first-class season, play Duleep Trophy. That’s a longer road,” Chahar had said, after playing his second ODI against the West Indies in December 2019.
“But if you do well in IPL, then you can quickly play for India and during that phase of my career, I decided to concentrate on white ball cricket,” he added.
It is a worrying trend that the players are choosing IPL over Ranji Trophy and if the selectors keep on neglecting the domestic performances like they are doing now, it can have catastrophic effects in the long run.
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