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For quite some time, I have been arguing in favour of India's top cricketers playing domestic cricket so that the level of competition helps young players coming through the system to mature (refer my previous blog posts). Thanks to IPL and relentless tours after tours throughout the year, India's top cricketers don't go back to domestic cricket, unless they are coming out of injury or have been dropped. IPL has become such a monolith that the BCCI had to face insult as players like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer chose to ignore its directives and skipped the Ranji Trophy. Of late there has been a trend wherein once players have established themselves in the Indian team, they do not go back to their domestic teams. This trend is of recent vintage, particularly post the star syndrome brought about by IPL. Ishan Kishan is a classic case. He wasn't in the top league except for the absurdly astronomical auction amount that propelled into the limelight. Thus he was able to ge...

The much-awaited, much-delayed debut of Sarfaraz Khan for the Indian Test team finally happened on 15th February 2024 at Rajkot in the third Test against England. For years, cricket aficionados have believed that Sarfaraz is the future of Indian Test cricket team. But a series of events, the most significant one a statement from a BCCI official who declared in June 2023 that Sarfaraz will never play for India, for reasons that seem to no longer exist, kept delaying the inevitable. Sarfaraz Khan emerged as a player with great potential in 2013 when he was first picked for the India under-19 (U-19) team. He debuted for Mumbai in 2014 and played IPL in 2015. In an era when one has to get noticed more in the IPL than other 'domestic' tournaments, Sarfaraz failed to pass the litmus test as he never had a knock of significance or a regular run with the three different franchisees he turned out for. Even though he was one of the three players retained by RCB in IPL-2017, he reportedly...

Sunil Gavaskar, in a post-mortem of the short two-Test series played by India in South Africa, advised the Indian cricket team to play a few first-class practice games on an away tour. By refusing to do so on numerous tours in the last decade or so, the Indian cricket team has invariably lost the first Test and then has to play catch-up.  I am reminded of India's Test tour to Australia in 1977-78, the first series that I followed as a 12-year old. The tour itinerary below gives a glimpse into the number of first-class games that India played before and in between the Tests. India in Australia, 1977/78 South Australia v Indians at Adelaide, 4-6 Nov 1977 Victoria v Indians at Melbourne, 11-14 Nov 1977 New South Wales v Indians at Sydney, 18-21 Nov 1977 Queensland v Indians at Brisbane, 25-27 Nov 1977 1st Test: Australia v India at Brisbane, 2-6 Dec 1977 Western Australia v Indians at Perth, 9-12 Dec 1977 2nd Test: Australia v India at Perth, 16-21 Dec 1977 Tasmania v Indians at Launc...

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...