Pacers Mohammed Siraj and Umran Malik will not be a part of the Duleep Trophy, which begins on September 5 and will be held in Anantpur and Bengaluru.
Senior India spinner all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja too has been released from the Team B squad of Duleep, which had featured Siraj.
While illness is the reason behind Siraj and Umran's unavailability, as stated by the BCCI release, no mention was made as to why Jadeja will not be available for the competition. It was learnt that due to "personal reasons", Jadeja is skipping the tournament.
While no replacement was named for Jadeja, Navdeep Saini will take Siraj's place in Team B and Gaurav Yadav comes in place of Umran in Team C.
Regarding Siraj, sources in the BCCI say he's expected to be fit by the time India's two-Test series against Bangladesh gets underway. The first Test will be in Chennai from September 19. But, what about Umran?
"He was down with dengue some days back and because of that, he still has a bit of weakness. Now since he's on the national team radar, they (selectors) are not taking a chance. He has been advised a little more rest," a BCCI official told The Telegraph.
"It takes time to be fully fit on being down with dengue. So, Umran might as well take another month or so to be 100 per cent match fit."
Umran, with 10 ODI and eight T20I caps so far, also featured among the quicks at the NCA (National Cricket Academy in Bangalore), whose progress was being monitored as the selectors had his name in their notebook before finalising India's bowling group for the Australia tour beginning in November. An impressive showing in Duleep could well have brightened Umran's prospects regarding the Australia Tests. But for the moment, this illness does appear like a setback to the scope of proving his mettle in red-ball cricket.
Since July 2023, Umran hasn't donned the Team India cap. His IPL stint with Sunrisers Hyderabad has been limited to just nine appearances in the last two seasons of the competition. In fact, in this year's IPL, the Jammu and Kashmir pacer played in just one game on March 27, which also happens to be his last competitive appearance to date.
In that lone game Umran played, against Mumbai Indians in Hyderabad, he had bowled just an over, conceding 15 runs. Following the IPL, he sustained a hamstring injury and post-recovery, he was struck by dengue. He certainly couldn't have been more unfortunate.
Completely out of action for five months, the Duleep Trophy would have given Umran some much-needed game time and success there could have helped him impress the selectors.
For Saini and Gaurav, the Duleep berth certainly provides them with an opportunity to make an impression. Pacer Saini, who has so far represented India in two Tests, eight ODIs and 11 T20Is, had last played a competitive game back in January for Delhi. He was benched during the entire IPL 2024 season by Rajasthan Royals because of being injured mostly before recovering later during the tournament.
Thirtytwo-year-old Gaurav, on the other hand, had finished with 41 wickets in just 11 bowling innings in the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy after switching over to Pondicherry from Madhya Pradesh. He has been a consistent wicket-taker with the red ball with 24 scalps in 2022-23 Ranji, 23 each in the 2021-22 and 2019-20 editions.
Overall, he has 141 wickets from 37 first-class matches so far.
