India captain Rohit Sharma and young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal have been named in Mumbai’s 17-member squad for the Ranji Trophy match against Jammu and Kashmir, commencing on January 23. Both Rohit and Yashasvi will play under the captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane, the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) announced on Monday.
Rohit had confirmed that he would play the Ranji Trophy during a press conference to announce India’s squads for a three-match ODI series against England and the Champions Trophy. When asked if he would play the next Ranji Trophy match, Rohit replied, “I will.”
Rohit will be heading into the Ranji Trophy after a woeful series in Australia where the Indian captain managed to score only 31 runs across five Test innings. The India captain had trained with the Mumbai squad on January 15 after the BCCI made it mandatory for the players to participate in the domestic tournament.
“(In) the last 6-7 years, I can at least tell about what has happened with me since I’ve started playing Test cricket regularly, which is from 2019, you hardly have any time (in hand),” Rohit told the reporters. Rohit had said that cricketers do not play domestic cricket due to a busy schedule with the national team.
“And then, when you play so much international cricket through the year, you need some time off as well as a cricketer just to refresh, get your mind right, just to be ready for the upcoming season. But we have addressed it now and nobody takes it for granted or anything like that. It is just based on looking at how one has gone through the season, how much rest he needs.”
“Based on all of that, we decide what is going to happen with certain players. Now it’s been made mandatory that if there is time, you have to play domestic cricket,” Rohit added.
Mumbai squad: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ayush Mhatre, Shreyas Iyer, Siddhesh Lad, Shivam Dube, Hardik Tamore (wk), Akash Anand (wk), Tanush Kotian, Shams Mulani, Himanshu Singh, Shardul Thakur, Mohit Awasthi, Sylvester Dsouza, Royston Dias, Karsh Kothari.
