In January, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) released a 10-point guidelines policy for the India cricket team’s centrally contracted players. The major talking point of this mandate was that BCCI had essentially made playing for your state in domestic cricket compulsory.
BCCI’s domestic mandate makes Kohli & Rohit Sharma play Ranji Trophy
If a player wasn’t selected for any of the three national teams, he must play in domestic cricket. The only exceptions would be those who are injured or those who get approval from the Chairman of the Selection Committee. Following this, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli played one match each in the second leg of the Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season.
The two superstars were playing domestic cricket after gaps of 13 and 9 years, respectively, following their failures in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Not just them but players like KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal, who found success in Australia, took the field as well.
Shikhar Dhawan advises BCCI to toe the line
Many backed BCCI’s decision. Others not so much. Forcing ageing players or those coming off long tours to not recover wasn’t right for them. Shikhar Dhawan falls somewhere in between. The former Indian opener has backed the decision to push international stars to play domestic cricket for the betterment of the domestic system and players but believes that resting players is equally important.
“It’s a very good decision. My only thing is that players should not be overloaded, that’s all. But people will monitor that. It’s a good thing that current players should play domestic (cricket) as well—like how Virat played (for Delhi a few weeks back), and the stadium got packed. At the same time, they should be rested enough,” Dhawan told PTI.
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