The resumption of the Ranji Trophy after a one-year break can only be good news. And not only for the financial health of our first-class cricketers, especially those who do not have an IPL contract. If cricket is a viable career for an Indian player, it is important that he plays Ranji Trophy.
But there is more to it than that. This means there are players ready, fit and qualified to go into the national team. This means that those in the ambit of selection get another chance to influence the selectors.
Earlier this year, when things were uncertain, pacer Jaydev Unadkat tweeted, “Dear red ball, please give me one more chance. I’ll make you proud, promise!Unadkat has played one Test and seven ODIs. He was just 30 years old after helping Saurashtra win their maiden Ranji title the last time the tournament was held. The pathos in the tweet was aggravated by the fact that he had claimed 67 wickets, the most in that season, at 13.23.
However, he could not make it to the Indian team. “Now that I think about my travel season by season, if I set my heart on the domestic season, I’ll get a chance sooner or later,” he said in a recent interview.
the impact of losing a season
Time moves fast for a player, and the loss of a season (for a while it looked like two seasons) can be devastating. Both the number of active years and the year at the top are limited. You have to make the most of what is available.
By splitting Ranji in two with the league starting this month and the IPL post-Knockouts, the cricket board can tell both of us that the national championship is important and the IPL is important too.
Tough times demand tough choices, and at any rate players are unlikely to complain. The biggest curse for a player is the lack of opportunity.
With 38 teams in the fray, the National Championship will revitalize over a thousand players, umpires, curators, scorers and many more involved in the game. The covid pandemic forced the cricket board’s hands last season when the tournament had to be cancelled; Few smiles have returned at any point in the careers of cricketers, and especially those in the middle, who are at their peak. If he has a message for the national selectors, he has to give it now.
The Ranji Trophy is the nursery of international cricketers. Rahul Dravid once wrote about playing it for five years before being called up for India. But it’s not just the players. For five years I reported on tournaments, traveled across the country, getting to know players, familiarizing myself with the officials and their special talents, and listening to old-timey tales, before I was allowed to report on Test matches. was given. It was a solid foundation, and one I wouldn’t exchange for anything.
learning experience
There was romance in the championship. One traveled by train with the players, and sat down with the youngsters as seniors like Gundappa Viswanath talked about their international experiences and their early years in the game. You learned more from an overnight train journey with Erapalli Prasanna or ML Jayasimha (they had become manager and coach by then) than you learned from reading any amount of books on the game.
look at this boy
You met players when they were young, nervous and full of self-doubt; Seniors tell you to “look at this guy”, as Venkataraghavan once did about Mohammad Azharuddin. Careers began, flourished and ended in front of your laptop leaving behind only memories. Many were forgotten except those who were there to tell their stories.
Sometimes matches were played in smaller towns; It was his biggest event in the calendar. When the number of requests for autographs was hard to manage, the manager brought a bunch of autograph books and some of us young people signed on as players. Players and fans were both happy.
“The signature I use for my bank is slightly different from the one I use on autograph books,” said Brijesh Patel, before the terms come into common use, giving us a lesson in privacy and security. Happened.
International stars were happy to come out for the Ranji Trophy, unlike now when most make excuses to stay away. Maybe with good reason, because they play so much all year long anyway, but something is missing when it happens. The circumstances meant that India’s most successful batsman (Sachin Tendulkar) never played against India’s most successful bowler (Anil Kumble) in a national championship, it is a pity.
Who wouldn’t love to see Jasprit Bumrah bowling to Virat Kohli, or Rishabh Pant taking on Ravichandran Ashwin?
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