Sourav Ganguly on the Importance of Red-Ball Cricket and the Selection Process | Cricket News

NEW DELHI: Sourav Ganguly has observed the evolution of Indian cricket both as a Team India captain and also as an administrator during his three-year stint as BCCI president. Now working with young Indian players as director of cricket for Delhi Capitals, Ganguly spoke to TOI about the importance of red-ball cricket for the growth of players.
Excerpts from a conversation during Delhi Capitals’ camp at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Friday…
With BCCI dropping Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer from central contracts, the focus has shifted to the relevance of first-class cricket… I think this is the first time that someone has not played or ignored red-ball domestic cricket. Otherwise, all of them have played Ranji Trophy when they were free. I am sure the BCCI will take proper action.

Maybe the younger generation feels focusing on white-ball cricket is important for having a good IPL career. Obviously, not many get to play Test cricket for India…
They can play both red-ball and white-ball. IPL career can happen along with stint in first-class cricket. They don’t clash. Firstclass cricket finishes and then there’s almost a month before the IPL starts. I don’t see any problem. A lot of the top quality players play Test cricket and white-ball cricket. You look at Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant.

On the world stage, there’s Mitchell Marsh. He is Australia’s premier red-ball player now. Harry Brook plays red-ball cricket. David Warner played so much Test cricket but he was also one of the best white-ball players. Even in my days, Sachin, Rahul and myself played Test cricket and then played white-ball cricket. There’s no reason to say that you can play one and not the other.

In an IPL franchise, how much importance is given to Ranji Trophy performances?
You look at everything. I am not saying you should only look at Ranji performances. You look at white-ball performances and then Ranji Trophy performances. What happens is that the Ranji Trophy season is two months long. And if you are out of the Ranji Trophy season and you finish your domestic season in the month of Nov or early Dec, then you are playing next in April. There’s too much gap between game time.
The younger players cite workload management at the state level as well as a factor…
Honestly, workload is only for fast bowlers. Why do batters need any workload management? I can understand Bumrah being rested. Jimmy Anderson has played over 160 Tests. What workload are you talking about at the start of your career? I still maintain that Indian cricket’s standard is superb.

Do you think the younger crop of players needed to be guided better?
For someone like Ishan Kishan, BCCI secretary Jay Shah, president Roger Binny and the selectors need to speak to him. All this while he has played Ranji and then played white-ball cricket. Has it made him a poorer player? It hasn’t.
All the players picked in Delhi Capitals have played Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Ranji Trophy. Even Ishant Sharma has played Ranji. Khaleel Ahmed has played the full season after a long time.
We worked with him in the off season and got him fit to play Ranji. There are only one or two exceptions who need to be spoken to.
India seems to be the only country where younger players don’t announce retirement from a format?
The difference with other countries is that the players there also play in other leagues, which doesn’t happen in India. So, you have to keep playing your domestic cricket through the season.
Coming to Capitals, there’s a lot of hype around the impending comeback of Rishabh Pant…
That’s part of professional sport. Rishabh coming back fit is a huge addition for us. We hope he plays the full season because he is a very special player. We have worked on some domestic players who have done well in all formats. But Rishabh is very important.
Any word from the medical team about Pant being fit to keep wickets? Do you have captaincy and wicketkeeping backups?
He has done everything to get fit and that’s the reason NCA will clear him. Let Rishabh get cleared on Mar 5 only then we’ll talk about captaincy backups. We are taking a cautious approach with him because he has a very long career ahead of him. We don’t want to push him in excitement. We will see how Rishabh reacts. He will be joining the camp once NCA gives him the clearance. We will see match by match. We can’t predict.
As for wicketkeeping options, there’s Kumar Kushagra. Ricky Bhui has had a very good season. There is Shai Hope and Tristan Stubbs.
Prithvi Shaw is also making a comeback from injury. He had a very bad season last year. Your thoughts…
Prithvi is batting really well. He went to play county and scored a lot of runs last season. The only thing about him is that he thinks a lot about strike rate. That needs to be balanced. He is getting fitter too. There was over-reliance on overseas players last year. That shouldn’t be the case this year.