“Having rested all the India bowlers, it won’t be easy to see which batter is good” – Sunil Gavaskar opens up on 2024 Duleep Trophy regret

Legendary Sunil Gavaskar regretted the absence of main bowlers from the ongoing Duleep trophy. The Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel didn’t pick bowlers like Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravichandran Ashwin for the domestic red-ball competition.

Furthermore, Mohammed Shami is still recovering from his ankle injury. Gavaskar reckons it is difficult to judge the performances of the batters as the main bowlers have not been picked for Duleep trophy.

“This time, having rested all the India bowlers, it won’t be easy to see which batter is good as they would be playing basically second string bowlers. So while the matches would be good tuning for the season to come, the selectors won’t get much insight how good the batters really are,” wrote Gavaskar for Mid Day.

The Little Master reckons it is important that the domestic structure remains strong if Indian cricket has to keep going strongly.

“If Indian cricket has to remain strong then it’s important that the domestic structure is strong too. That means scheduling the red-ball tournament in such a way that those playing for the country should also be available for at least some part of the Ranji and Duleep Trophy matches. Otherwise, it will only be a false dawn as far as talent is concerned,” he added.

Gavaskar reckons the competition in the state leagues is not top class and performing well in them doesn’t mean that a player will have a long career at the top level.

“The many state premier leagues going on are a perfect example of that. From all these games there will probably be at best a few players who will have a long career. Scoring runs or taking wickets in these state leagues doesn’t really mean much because the quality of cricket is not high. Some of the players, lucky enough to get picked for the IPL are quickly found out in the highly competitive season-end spectacle,” Gavaskar wrote in the same column.

“Their scores in these state leagues are pretty much like most of the matches between Associate member countries. Here, some teams get bowled out for scores as low as 20 and some batters are hammering 100s and sixers every other ball. Then we get to read that someone has equalled Yuvraj Singh’s record of hitting six sixes in one over and has gone on to score the fastest 50 in T20 internationals,” concluded Gavaskar.

India will take on Bangladesh in a two-match Test series, starting September 19 in Chennai.