Renaming Duleep Trophy teams after former Indian greats, should BCCI take the initiative or not?

Domestic cricket season in India is in the limelight after it kick-started in the form of the coveted Buchi Babu tournament in Tamil Nadu recently. A trend started by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in recent times saw the former BCCI Secretary and new ICC chair Jay Shah, has seemingly carried forward.

Notably, that new trend has been to transition from the old format of zones to having different teams having a young pool of talents chalked out by the Indian board in a bid to prepare them for the future. This also includes those players who have either never played in Tests for India or have shown their brilliant performances in the white-ball formats but they are yet to display their calibre in the red-ball cricket. As a result, the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2024 will see a change in the format for the first time doing away with zonal teams. 

Notably, the tournament will start on September 5 and will conclude on September 22, 2024. Jay Shah had announced four squads viz- India A, India B, India C, and India D, respectively. However, some senior players have been exempted from playing in the upcoming edition in the form of India skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. Out of the Shami has been recuperating at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.

Amid all these, there are a plethora of things to mull over for the fans, former players and the Indian board alike. The first burning question which takes centre stage before any other issue is- Should the teams of domestic cricket tournaments be named after former Indian legends or not? Interestingly, this pattern has not been argued much in India. Recently, Australia have also been pondering over renaming their one-day domestic competition after a former legend.

The reason? While players work hard and dream of breaking into the national team, one fact which has often been disregarded. The fact that while toiling hard in training sessions, young players often follow and admire the legendary players and have a favourite icon whom they want to emulate on the big stage. Hence, a question which often bamboozled me from a fan's perspective when it comes to the team names of India's domestic cricket tournaments. That question is will it not be more apt to name the teams on Indian legends to bring a sense of pride and excitement into the young crop of players?

The Indian board should stir their thought process and ask themselves whether a player playing with an icon's name as his/her team identity will fill them with immense pride and will encourage them to play hard in the field or not. The move of naming teams such as Gavaskar XI, and Tendulkar XI for instance, will not only encourage them further to try and emulate their icons but also prove their worth in the team with an icon's name at stake in a way. Moreover, another major reason for renaming teams would be to honour the immense contribution of players like Sunil Gavaskar, Colonel CK Nayudu, Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and many more towards Indian cricket.

After having put forth the think tank regarding the renaming of teams, let's examine the selection dilemmas and positives considered by the national selectors for the upcoming Duleep Trophy.

Limited-pace bowling allrounders in country

Team India are gearing up for their home Test season against Bangladesh and they will follow it up by playing with New Zealand as well. Post the conclusion of the home season, the Indian side will fly to Australia to play a full-fledged series down under. Hence, BCCI is seemingly keen on finding new players who would be good enough to play for India given that the team have remained unbeatable in the past two tours to Australia. While the limited-overs format has helped find some budding talents through IPL (Indian Premier League) and other state-based T20 leagues, the same cannot be said for the red-ball format.

Probably, that is one of the key reasons why BCCI made some stringent decisions on making it mandatory for even the international players to play the domestic cricket in a bid to keep polishing their skills and also mentoring young guns. As a result, players like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer. However, there are problems of plenty and opportunities as well in the Duleep Trophy 2024.

Speaking of the coveted domestic event, selectors have picked 61 players for the Duleep Trophy. Out of them, 15 players are bowlers while 26 players are identified as uncapped players. This surely indicates BCCI's desperation to find good players who can possibly replace the current crop of players who are nearly in the twilight of their careers already.

One of the biggest persisting problems has been a lack of fast bowling allrounders. Barring Hardik Pandya, India have struggled to find a genuine all-rounder for a long time now. Even though Shivam Dubey showed some glimpses of his potential in red-ball cricket for Mumbai last season by scoring beyond 400 runs and picking 12 wickets.

But the answer to the concerns still hangs in uncertainty. Another worthy candidate who has potential was Nitish Reddy of Andhra Pradesh. However, his injuries have prevented him from presenting himself as an option for India in future.

Problem of plenty in medium pace department

Apart from the raw pace concerns, looking at the list of players selected for the Duleep Trophy, a plethora of players who have allround abilities are medium pacers. Hence with already existing bowlers like Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj and a few who made their debut in any format for India in recent times, there are 10 identified uncapped youngsters but lack enough pace. However, the rising seam bowler from Karnataka, Vidwath Kaverappa, has shown immense promise with his good start in first-class cricket.

So far, Kaverappa has claimed 80 wickets from 20 appearances. Notably, the willy bowler was also a part of India A teams which played against South Africa A side and England Lions at the start of this year. Apart from him, another rising pacer Mohit Awasthi of Mumbai picked up 35 wickets in the last season of the Ranji Trophy.

Then there are some players, who have done fairly well in short bursts but they are yet to taste the joy of playing the purest format of the game. These players range from Yash Dayal, Harshit Rana, Assam's rising pacer, Akash Sengupta, Aditya Thakre, Himanshu Chauhan and Vyshak Vijaykumar to name a few.

Plenty of Spin all rounders

Ace Indian spin legend Ravichandran Ashwin along with his partners Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel have served Indian cricket for a long now. Especially, Ashwin's journey has been nothing short of incredible. But the question that arises ahead is who after a player like Ashwin and Co. hang their boots sooner or later? Hence, to find answers to this quest, the BCCI zeroed in on four spinners who can bat as well.

The Indian board scanned from West, North and South India to find some fine talents who are worthy candidates to replace such big spinners. These names range from Manav Suthar, R Sai Kishore, and Washington Sundar to Hrithik Shokeen and Saransh Jain, respectively. There are also some candidates like Rahul Chahar, Mayank Markande, and Saurabh Kumar.

Dropping big names, pushing youngsters with heavy scorers in front

One of the most credible yet daring moves from the Indian board on the roadmap to building a future team for India in the red-ball circuit which was showcased in the selections has been to drop the big names and push the players who scored at least 500 or more runs in the previous season of the Ranji Trophy. Hence, there has been a change in approach on the batting front shown by the BCCI.

These names include the likes of Shashwat Rawat (Baroda), Musheer Khan (Mumbai), Abishek Porel (Bengal), Aryan Juyal (Uttar Pradesh), Yash Dubey (Madhya Pradesh) and Atharve Taide (Vidarbha) to name a few.

Future of Suryakumar Yadav in Tests

Even though, the BCCI adopted a new approach for exploring batters, one player who has shown immense talent in the limited-overs but has barely played in the Test format has been none other than Suryakumar Yadav. Mr 360 has played a sole Test so far for Team India, However, he failed to get going in his debut Test and scored just eight runs.

Surprisingly, BCCI left out the likes of Rinku Singh who averaged approximately 60 in his First Class exploits. The selectors decided to pursue Yadav and test out his mettle in the domestic circuit. Hence, Yadav has been given a rope while leaving the heavyweights of the Indian team in the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, and Ajinkya Rahane.

Duleep Trophy Squads with fresh faces:

Batters/Wicketkeepers: