Duleep Trophy: Selector reveals why Wriddhiman Saha snubbed chance to play in domestic tournament

Ishan Kishan’s refusal to play in the upcoming Duleep Trophy meant that they selectors of the East Zone team were left with quite a headache. Instead of Kishan, the selectors decided to go with Bengal cricketer Abhishek Porel, and not Wriddhiman Saha, the more experienced wicketkeeper.

For almost two years now, injuries and lack of form has forced Saha away from the Indian Test team, having last played for the country in a Test against New Zealand in December 2021.

Till date, Saha has played 40 Tests for India, and scored 1353 runs.

Saha, though, was impressive in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season, completing nine catches and two stumpings for his team Gujarat Titans (GT). The 38-year-old scored 371 runs from 17 matches.

Tripura selector Jayanta Dey revealed that he had got in touch with Saha before making the decision to call-up the 20-year-old Porel.

Wriddhiman was all for a youngster playing in his place in the Duleep Trophy, Dey said.

“To be fair to Wriddhiman, he said that Duleep Trophy is for India hopefuls. If I am never going to play for India, then doesn’t make sense in preventing a youngster from making a case. Hence we selected Abhishek Porel, who was the third choice,” Dey was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Had Kishan been selected, he would have got the captaincy role for the East Zone side, but the 24-year-old was “not interested” in playing the tournament, a selection committee member of East Zone said. Abhimanyu Easwaran has been named East Zone skipper with Shahbaz Nadeem as his deputy.

“Since he was in India squad for WTC final and KS Bharat, the man who kept wickets is playing for South Zone, we asked Zonal selection committee convenor Debasish Chakraborty to tell us if we could select Kishan,” the selection committee member told PTI, on conditions of anonymity.

“As he is a senior India regular in white ball, he would have got the captaincy. Chakraborty got in touch with Ishan over phone and came back and told us that he is not interested in playing Duleep Trophy. We were not told if he has an injury or not. Just that he doesn’t want to play,” he added.

The Duleep Trophy will be held in Bengaluru from 28 June.

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