Jay Shah defends Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma's absence from Duleep Trophy and tags other India stars as servants

Indian cricket has followed a rule in the past few years. If a player gets injured, he will have to go back and prove his fitness and form in domestic cricket in order to win his place back in the national team.

Recently, Jay Shah spoke about this rule and was adamant on the fact that this process will keep on getting followed in the future as well. Jay Shah also mentioned that it is because of this rule that Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are willing to play in the upcoming season of the Duleep Trophy.

It is to be noted that both Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were removed from the BCCI's annual central contracts list after they were found to be prioritizing IPL over domestic cricket in the last season. But both the players have been willingly included in the upcoming season of the Duleep Trophy.

Also read: Jay Shah demonstrates BCCI's dominance over ICC by refusing to host Women’s T20 World Cup

"We must treat our players respectfully" - Jay Shah

While speaking to TOI, Jay Shah spoke about the rule of playing domestic cricket before making a comeback into the national team. Shah stated that the rule applies to every Indian cricketer except Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Jasprit Bumrah whose workloads are carefully managed.

"We have been little strict. When Ravindra Jadeja had got injured, I was the one who called him and asked him to play a domestic game. It's certain now, whoever gets injured and goes out, can only come into the Indian team after proving his fitness in domestic cricket," Jay Shah said.

"But it doesn't make sense to add to Virat (Kohli) and Rohit's (Sharma) load by asking them to play domestic cricket. They run the risk of getting injured. You also need to look at England and Australia. None of their top players play domestic cricket. We must treat our players respectfully and not treat them like servants," Jay Shah added.

Jay Shah breaks silence on the return of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan in domestic cricket

Shah also mentioned that Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are playing in the Duleep Trophy because of the harsh steps taken by him. Both these players faced a lot of flak last season for prioritizing IPL over domestic cricket.

"If you look Duleep Trophy squad, apart from Rohit and Virat rest are going to play. It's because of the harsh steps I have taken, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are playing Duleep Trophy," the BCCI secretary said.

Why were Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan removed from the BCCI's contracts list?

Before he was removed from the BCCI's annual central contracts list, Shreyas Iyer was dropped from India's Test team from the home series against England earlier this year due to poor form. Iyer was told to play domestic matches for Mumbai but he complained of a back problem and made himself unavailable for Mumbai's semi-final match.

During that time, he went to Kolkata to oversee his IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders' preparations for the upcoming IPL season. Iyer returned and played Mumbai's semi-final and final matches but his contract wasn't renewed. Under his leadership, KKR went on to clinch the IPL 2024 title. Iyer has been appointed the captain of Team D in the Duleep Trophy 2024.

Meanwhile, Ishan Kishan was also told to play domestic cricket in order to make a comeback into the national side. But Kishan did not make himself available for Jharkhand and was instead found to be training privately with his IPL captain Hardik Pandya. As a result, he was removed from the contracts list. He is also part of the same team as Shreyas Iyer in the Duleep Trophy.