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The Eden Gardens, one of India's most iconic cricket stadiums was always an aspirational venue. Ever since I have come to Kolkata last year, there were opportunities to visit the venue during the IPL or domestic first-class matches. IPL was a strict no-no, given the hot and humid weather in April-May, that too in a perennially humid Kolkata. How players survive in this weather is no mystery though given the big bucks involved. The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 provided an excellent opportunity to watch at least one match at the venue. But some fraud deprived me of any ticket when the so-called official (ICC aka BCCI) portal opened in early September. None of the matches at the Eden Gardens weren't showing SOLD OUT within ten minutes of the opening of the ticket portal. What followed was a hue and cry, which became evident as the opening match of the World Cup was played in a virtually empty stadium. So the powers that they were forced to open the portal for tickets again...

Indian star batsmen hardly play domestic cricket. The last first-class domestic matches played by Virat Kohli (Ranji Trophy, 2-5 November 2012, Delhi vs UP; Irani Trophy, 1-5 October 2010, Rest of India vs Mumbai; Duleep Trophy, 26-29 January 2010) and Rohit Sharma (Duleep Trophy, 10-14 September 2016, India Blue vs India Red; Irani Trophy, 6-10 February 2013, Mumbai vs Rest of India; Ranji Trophy, 15-18 December 2012, Mumbai vs Saurashtra) explains the trouble the Indian Test team is in. They have floundered against debutants like Todd Murphy and Kuhnemann, who may not get to play again for Australia once they return home. Once the star players like Kohli and Rohit establish themselves in the India team they do not go back to domestic cricket. They only play IPL for their franchises, and unless someone like a Ravindra Jadeja wants to test his fitness after injury does he play domestic cricket, as he did in January 2023. The BCCI has a star system which ensures that the top stars do no...

 If there was a more inspiring as well as depressing story, it would belong to Sarfaraz Khan. He was the only player to represent India in two successive U-19 World Cups, scoring 7 half centuries. The India U-19 coach of that time Rahul Dravid mandating that one could play just one WC at U-19 level. After his Ranji debut for Mumbai he must have felt something that forced him to move to UP. He returned back after an unsuccessful season and had to sit out the cooling period of 1 year to be eligible for Mumbai again. Since then he has scored 900 plus runs in three successive domestic seasons. His team mates from the 2016 U-19 WC team have at various times have had the selectors' nod - Prithvi, Shubhman, Pant, Washington, to name a few. And after assuring him that his time would come when he was not picked for the Bangladesh tour, the selectors have picked a T20 specialist SKY and ignored Sarfaraz again. #Justice_for_Sarfaraz

Continuing from my previous blogpost Mindless Scheduling Hurting Indian Cricket, it would be appropriate to offer a way out of the deep crisis that Indian cricket is passing through, in spite of all the moolah and star power. The 3-0 win over New Zealand in the T20I series soon after the debacle India suffered in the ICC T20 World Cup should not be taken to pat ones back, because by now the mindless scheduling has taken a little toll on New Zealand for instance. Within a day of losing a keenly contested ICC T20 World Cup Finals on 14th November 2021, the Kiwis landed in Jaipur, and lost to India, without Kohli, Bumrah and Shami, in all the three T20 Internationals (T20Is). Players like Rohit, Rahul and Pant were forced to go through the grind irrespective of the fact that they shall be part of the Indian Test team that will swiftly switch gears from the shortest format (T20) to the longest (Tests). Both New Zealand and India will switch to a five-day Test series of two Test matches wi...

Only Jasprit Bumrah can afford to speak out his mind and escape unscathed when he explained during the ongoing ICC (International Cricket Council) T20 World Cup that India's poor performance was on account of fatigue. Outgoing head coach Ravi Shastri too admitted that the Indian cricketers didn't switch on in pressure situations, having been in a bio-secure bubble for six months. By getting knocked out of the marquee event, the Indian players might have earned at least a week's rest ahead of a nerve-wracking schedule that shall continue when they return home. What we shall see in the coming months is a lot of talk of resting or rotating players, but if past experience is to go by none of the top players will step aside. No sponsor would like to see the stars rested either in franchise cricket or international cricket. If India had played the ICC T20 World Cup Finals on 14th November 2021, they would have had a two-day break before the first of the three T20s against New Zea...