Sunil Gavaskar Slams Indian Players For Prioritizing T20Is Over Ranji Trophy Ahead Of England Tests

Legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar has said that the Indian players should have played in the Ranji Trophy in order to prepare for the upcoming five-match Test series against England.

The highly-anticipated series is scheduled to be played from January 25. The first game of the series is scheduled to be played in Hyderabad. From the squad that has been announced for the first two Tests, only Shreyas Iyer has played in the Ranji Trophy this month.

The right-handed batsman was not picked in the squad for the recently concluded T20I series against Afghanistan and was asked by the selectors to play for Mumbai after his poor show in South Africa. He played in the game against Andhra and scored 48 runs. And Sunil Gavaskar believes playing in the Ranji Trophy instead of the T20I series against Afghanistan would have been more beneficial for the players.

“Would it have been better for some Indian batters to have played a couple of Ranji Trophy games to tune themselves for the Test series against England? Apart from KL Rahul, who scored one of the finest Test centuries seen in the first Test match in Centurion, and Virat Kohli, who batted well without quite getting to a century, the other Indian batters had a forgettable four innings in South Africa,” he wrote in his column for Sportstar.

“We will, of course, see in the coming weeks whether they should have played the T20 internationals against Afghanistan or a Ranji Trophy game,” Sunil Gavaskar added.

In the two-match Test in South Africa, only Virat Kohli and KL Rahul managed to score more than 100 runs.  Shubman Gill scored 74, captain Rohit Sharma scored 61 while his opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal managed only 50 runs. Shreyas Iyer could not even reach the 50-run mark and scored 41 runs in 4 innings.

Ranji Trophy gets diluted further: Sunil Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar went on to express his disappointment over the neglect of the Ranji Trophy by even the fringe players, saying that it contributes to the further dilution of India’s premier first-class competition. He stated the fringe players should have played in the Ranji Trophy instead of playing for India A. The likes of Dhruv Jurel and KS Bharat are part of the India squad and recently played against England A.

“The Ranji Trophy gets diluted even further when not just the internationals but also the fringe players playing against a visiting A team. The Ranji performances are thus hardly an indication of its real quality since a lot of teams where the players are appearing for the internationals and the ‘A’ games have their ‘B’ teams.

“With some new entrants to the Ranji Trophy still finding their feet, the performances are quite lopsided and hardly an indication of how good the performers really are,” wrote Sunil Gavaskar.

Meanwhile, India will be looking to bounce back after the drawn series against South Africa and eye a series win against England. India have won their last two home series against England and will start as favorites once again.