We look at when the big names in Indian cricket last made a domestic red-ball appearance in the country
The Indian Men’s side might not be scheduled to play again for another 38 days, but there seldom goes by a day in Indian cricket where there’s no news.
And big news broke in the morning today (August 12) when reports started floating that Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will be among others who might play in the upcoming edition of the Duleep Trophy, starting September 5.
Now, we know that the likes of Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and others are certain to play in the Duleep Trophy 2024, and we know Jasprit Bumrah is *definitely* not playing in the competition. But there’s still confusion over whether Rohit and Kohli will turn up.
We’ll know that in due time, of course, but ever wondered when was the last time these two behemoths, and a few other Indian players, last played domestic cricket in India?
Virat Kohli – 2012 November (Delhi vs Uttar Pradesh)
4,302 days. Yep, it’s been 11 years, 9 months and 11 days since Kohli last played domestic cricket in India. His last appearance in Indian domestic cricket came back in the 2012/13 Ranji Trophy, where he played one game for Delhi, against Uttar Pradesh, on the back of a very successful home series against New Zealand where he scored a century and two fifties.
Kohli batted twice and posted scores of 14 & 43. Interestingly, he was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar in both innings.
The last time Kohli played a stretch of domestic red-ball games was back in 2010, where he first made an appearance for Rest of India in the Irani Cup and then played three matches for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy.
Rohit Sharma – 2016 September (India Blue vs India Red)
Rohit Sharma’s last domestic red-ball appearance came back in 2016. Incidentally, it came in the 2016 Duleep Trophy, where he represented India Blue.
There, Rohit, who was still a middle-order batter back then, batted at No.4 and No.3 under the captaincy of Gautam Gambhir. He posted scores of 30 & 32* respectively.
The last time Rohit played for Mumbai was in the 2015/16 Ranji Trophy against Uttar Pradesh. There, he smashed a 140-ball 113 batting in the middle-order.
2012/13 was the last time Rohit played a full first-class season for Mumbai. He amassed 712 runs at an average of 71.20 and a strike rate of 66.35.
Jasprit Bumrah – 2017 January (Gujarat vs Jharkhand)
Unsurprisingly, Jasprit Bumrah has played a red-ball domestic match in India more recently than both Kohli and Rohit. Still, even his last domestic appearance in India came back in the 2016/17 Ranji Trophy. His last appearance was in January 2017 against Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy, where he registered his second-best figures in first-class cricket – 6/29.
The 2016/17 Ranji season saw Bumrah play seven matches for Gujarat, where he picked up 24 wickets at an average of 21.75.
He also made an appearance for India Green in Duleep Trophy 2016, where he took the wicket of Siddhesh Lad.
Post 2017, Bumrah’s next appearance in a red-ball game in India was the 2021 home series against England.
KL Rahul – 2020 February (Karnataka vs Bengal)
KL Rahul’s last domestic appearance came back in the semi-finals of the 2020 Ranji Trophy. Rahul, who was not a Test regular back then, really played the Ranji Trophy in a desperate attempt to find *some* form in red-ball cricket.
This appearance succeeded the horror run he had endured first at home across the England (away), West Indies (home) and Australia (away) tours.
However, he had no luck as he could only manage scores of 26 & 0.
Mohammed Shami – 2018 November (Bengal vs Kerala)
The right-armer’s last domestic red-ball appearance came against Kerala in the 2018 Ranji Trophy, where he registered match figures of 3/110.
Shami’s last ‘regular’ domestic season in red-ball cricket was in 2017, where he played four Ranji Trophy matches and picked 24 wickets at an average of 23.04.
Here’s when select other Indian players last played domestic red-ball cricket
Mohammed Siraj – February 2020 (Ranji Trophy: Hyderabad vs Vidarbha)
Ravindra Jadeja – January 2023 (Ranji Trophy: Saurashtra vs Tamil Nadu)
Ravichandran Ashwin – January 2020 (Ranji Trophy: Tamil Nadu vs Railways)
Rishabh Pant – December 2017 (Ranji Trophy: Delhi vs Vidarbha)
What does this tell us?
Unquestionably, Indian domestic cricket, as a whole, has been poorer in the last decade or so due to big names barely featuring in red-ball domestic cricket.
This is not the case with top players in other countries. Joe Root played five first-class games for Yorkshire this season. Ben Stokes himself played three FC games for Durham this season. The likes of Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne and Nathan Lyon are regulars in Shield cricket while even someone like Mitchell Starc played multiple Shield games back in 2021.
What this tells us is that Indian cricket is combating an issue that pretty much no other country is facing due to a) Presence of a boatload of all-format players b) IPL clogging up everyone’s schedule and c) Fixture congestion.
This rare, unprecedented 1.5 month long break might allow the top players to play some domestic cricket, but it’s certain to be a one-off, rather than a regular occurrence. The current schedule simply does not give any breathing space to the top all-format players, due to which they constantly end up no-showing domestic competitions.
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