Sunil Gavaskar questions the approach of Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer after Mumbai Ranji Trophy debacle

Sunil Gavaskar on Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer after Mumbai's loss vs J&K.

On the face of it, the Indian team stars returning to domestic cricket feels like tokenism. The BCCI has resorted to stricter parenting after back-to-back Test series defeats against New Zealand and Australia, which put paid to India’s chances of qualifying for the World Test Championship final. A 10-point diktat has made it mandatory for the India players to play domestic cricket. Else, they run the risk of losing their central contracts and, also, exclusion from the IPL.

So, the superstars, even those who didn’t turn up for the Duleep Trophy which marked the beginning of red-ball season, have returned to the Ranji Trophy fold en masse, when India’s red-ball season is over. The next Test assignment is in June – a five-match series in England.

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Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill and Ravindra Jadeja featured for their respective sides in the last round of the Ranji Trophy matches. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul had opted out, citing injuries. They will be playing the next round of games, starting from January 30. All said and done, are they 100 per cent committed to domestic cricket? Sunil Gavaskar was not at all happy with the approach of Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer in the game against Jammu and Kashmir, which Mumbai lost by five wickets.

“Whether their hearts were in it or they did that only to ensure they were not stripped of their BCCI contracts, like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were, after missing out on the Ranji Trophy games last year, is known only to them,” the legendary former India captain wrote in his Sportstar column.

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“Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s participation meant that Ayush Mhatre, who had got a couple of hundreds and some fifties, had to be left out of the Mumbai side. Hopefully, the youngster would have spent some time with both these players and picked their brains about adding to his batting ability.”

Rohit scored three and 28 in that game, with his gung-ho approach going askew. Iyer (11 and 17), too, according to Gavaskar, didn’t show proper application. He wrote: “The dismissal of Mumbai’s Test batters once again brought to the fore the perils of the all-out aggressive mode of batting that is nowadays thought of as being central to run-making. It can work on flat pitches, but on pitches where the ball is doing something, there has to be a technique good enough to keep out the good delivery.”

The Little Master also had a word of caution for the BCCI, asking the cricket board to be vigilant on players skipping domestic games under the pretext of injuries. “More interesting would be what action the BCCI takes if they don’t play,” he wrote. “Were they injured? Getting a medical certificate for an ‘injury’ is child’s play, and if they are injured, did they go to the NCA for treatment and recovery, as Nitish Reddy was sent the moment he had that side strain.”