“They will risk injury” – Jay Shah’s on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s absence for Duleep Trophy

The Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Jay Shah said it is crucial to manage the workload of veteran batters like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and thus they haven’t been picked in the Duleep trophy. Earlier, it was reported that the talismanic duo would be picked for the domestic tournament but in the end, they were ignored by the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel.

While Rohit last played in the Duleep trophy back in 2016, Kohli hasn’t played any domestic cricket since 2012. The duo recently played in the three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka, which India lost by 2-0.

Rohit scored 157 runs in three matches at an average of 52.33 but Kohli could only manage 58 runs in as many games.

Jay Shah said as quoted by ANI via TOI, “We should not insist on players like Rohit and Virat to play in the Duleep Trophy. They will risk injury. If you have noticed, in Australia and England, every international player does not play domestic cricket. We have to treat the players with respect.”

Meanwhile, Jay Shah noted barring the veteran duo, almost every player is playing in the Duleep Trophy and Buchi Babu tournament.

“Apart from them, everyone else is playing. You should appreciate that.”

“One must note that Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer are playing in the Buchi Babu tournament.”

Meanwhile, Ishan Kishan will lead Jharkhand in Buchi Babu whereas Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav will represent Mumbai in one match.

Duleep trophy squads:

Team A: Shubman Gill (C), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.

Team B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant, Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).

Team C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.

Team D: Shreyas lyer (C), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (WK), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (WK), Saurabh Kumar.