Eight players of the India U-19 World Cup winning team will have to wait for some more time to get their name in the Indian Premier League auction pool as they don’t meet the criteria set by the Indian cricket board. Only those U-19 players who have played at least one first-class match or List A game can enrol in the auction. If they don’t have domestic cricket experience, the rules state that they should have turned 19 before the auction takes place to be eligible.
The rule will affect players like wicketkeeper Dinesh Bana, India’s under-19 vice-captain, batsman Shaik Rasheed, left-arm pacer Ravi Kumar, all-rounders Nishant Sindhu and Siddarth Yadav, opener Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manav Parakh and Garv Sangwan. Players like Rasheed, Bana, Kumar and Sindhu made a big impact in India’s victorious campaign in the Caribbean.
The BCCI is yet to take a final call on the matter, but many within the board feel an exception can be made especially when hardly any domestic cricket has been played in the last two years during the pandemic.
Ranji Trophy, the premier domestic first-class tournament, kicks off on February 17 which means even if the respective state associations include them in their Ranji teams, they won’t be eligible for the IPL auction scheduled for February 12 and 13.
The IPL 2022 Player Auction pool has a total of 590 cricketers, set to go under the hammer during the two-day event in Bengaluru. Amongst the players registered for the auction are 228 capped players, 355 uncapped ones and seven from Associate Nations.
“It’s unfortunate that these boys weren’t able to play List A tournaments as U-19 and List A games were played simultaneously. One season, there was no cricket at all due to the pandemic. I feel the BCCI should consider this as a special case and the players should not lose out because of this (stipulation). The team has done really well and they should not be deprived of the opportunity,” veteran BCCI administrator Ratnakar Shetty said.
