A few of the past reports claimed that two superstars of Indian cricket, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, could feature in the ongoing edition of the Domestic Trophy 2024, at least for the first round of the game at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, as they look forward to preparing for the upcoming home season which starts with the two-match Test series against Bangladesh.
Virat Kohli last featured in a red-ball game on the first week of the year in South Africa before he missed out on the five-match Test series at home against England due to personal reasons, while Rohit played the whole series against Ben Stokes-led side.
Both of them haven’t played a lot of games since the final of the T20 World Cup 2024 in the West Indies and United States of America (USA) before being present in the three-match ODI series in Sri Lanka, which India went on to lose with a 2-0 margin.
“Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma could have played”- Pragyan Ojha
It generally becomes quite hard to get back into simple batting routines when they don’t do the regular job for such a wrong side. The national team not playing for a long time has been quite rare these days, but the break was quite vital for the Blue Brigade, who looks forward to their upcoming five Tests in the home season before another five-match red-ball series in the Border Gavaskar Trophy in the Australia trip.
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Most of the senior members decided to join the four teams in the Duleep Trophy to prepare for the Bangladesh series, which includes the vice-captain of the side, Shubman Gill, the middle order batters, KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer, while Rishabh Pant targets this game to prepare his comeback in the red-ball format after nearly two years.
Virat Kohli and Rohit were supposed to be part of the series, which is the reason why the first game between India A and India B was scheduled in Bengaluru for better traveling facilities. But they denied it at the end.
Former Indian off-spinner Pragyan Ojha has given his verdict on the matter, stating that both of the two veteran batters should have played the first round of the tournament to regain fitness ahead of a packed Test season. The Bengal spinner pointed out that batting against some of the top-class Indian bowlers would have been better match practice for the two to take the challenges that lie ahead.
“Absolutely (if Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli should’ve played the Duleep Trophy). If you ask me, anybody who is going to play red-ball cricket should play a little bit of domestic cricket. Because it prepares you well.” The Bhubaneswar-born expressed during an interview with ‘Inside Sport.’
The veteran spinner, who has featured in 48 international games to pick up 144 wickets, felt more than celebrating a fifty, or a century, or a double century, the importance was to bat and get back into match fitness.
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“It is not about going and getting a 50 or a 100 or a double hundred. It’s more about getting those match fitness. Because match fitness is different from what normal day-to-day fitness you do. And, for that, you only have to play.” The 38-year-old remarked during the same interview.
“I think that every time a senior player plays, he is also at the same level as a new player. Because that match fitness requires an upgradation. That requires validation. So, I think for that, I would say Rohit and Virat could have played.” Pragyan Ojha concluded, joining Sanjay Manjrekar and Sunil Gavaskar, both of them were surprised at the decision.