Report: BCCI addresses Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s domestic cricket absence, mandates seniors to participate in Ranji Trophy

On Saturday, January 12, an important meeting was held at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai. Everyone was watching carefully at how the Indian cricket team did because they did not perform well in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The meeting had some important people, such as Indian captain Rohit Sharma, head coach Gautam Gambhir, the chairman of selectors, Ajit Agarkar, BCCI president, Roger Binny,vice president, Rajeev Shukla and joint secretary, Devjit Saikia.

BCCI mandates domestic cricket participation for senior Indian players

The BCCI has told the older players they have to participate in domestic cricket. This is because a review of India's games, especially the against Australia and New Zealand, shows they need to perform better and stay fit for matches. Dainik Jagran reported this.

Players who are under contract with the board now have strict rules about missing domestic matches. They only do not have to attend a game if they have a good reason. If a player wants to leave a match, they need to check from the team's doctor and then get the permission from two important people: Gautam Gambhir, the Indian team coach, and Ajit Agarkar, selecting players for the team.

The BCCI says if Gambhir and Agarkar say it's incredible, especially if the reasons are valid, such as needing a break for workload reasons, then it's okay to be excused. But really, they want everywhere to play, with no excuses or reasons to not do it.

BCCI is scrutinizing Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for poor form and domestic cricket absence

On Saturday, there was an important meeting that also paid a lot of attention to how Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been doing, especially since they didn't played well in Australia. Rohit had a hard time in the series and could only score 31 runs in five innings, and his performance was very poor that he chose not to play in the last test in Sydney.

At the same time, Kohli scored a good time with a hundred runs in Perth but still had a hard series overall. Kohli scored 190 runs over nine innings at bat and was repeatedly getting out to bowls outside off-stump during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.

In the BCCI's review meeting in Mumbai, a major topic they discussed was the very big difference Rohit and Kohli have in playing domestic cricket. Rohit hasn't played for a Ranji Trophy match since 2015, and Kohli even longer, last playing in 2012. Their long break from domestic games is making team worried. The board was very worried about how the lack of game time is messing up their batting skill.

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