Former India captain and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly wants the veteran Test duo of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane to go back to Ranji Trophy and regained their red-ball form. Both Pujara and Rahane are going through a rough patch and several cricket critics feel that India should give chance to young players like Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari and Shubman Gill.
Pujara hit his last Test century in early 2019, and he scored just 810 runs in the last 16 Tests at an underwhelming average of 27.93. While the lean patch has cost Rahane his Test vice-captaincy, as he hit 479 runs last year in 13 matches at 20.82 average.
Ganguly backed the veteran duo to regain their form by playing in domestic cricket as he feels they are very good players.
“Yeah, they are very good players. Hopefully, they will go back to Ranji Trophy and score a lot of runs, which I am sure they will. I don’t see any problem [for them to go back to domestic cricket after playing so much international cricket],” Ganguly told Sportstar.
The BCCI president further said being only one format players, Pujara and Rahane will not have any problem playing in Ranji Trophy.
“Ranji Trophy is a huge tournament, and we have all played the tournament. So, they, too, will go back there and perform. They have played the tournament in the past when they were only playing Test cricket and were not part of the ODI or limited-overs team. So, that won’t be a problem,” he added.
