India players Mohammed Siraj and Devdutt Padikkal are set to play the Duleep Trophy final for South Zone against East Zone at Chennai’s Chidambaram Stadium. The five-day match starts on Sunday.
They are good to go but there is a little problem for Tilak Varma (South Zone captain) and Ishan Kishan (East Zone captain). Both are also part of the three-T20I series against Afghanistan starting September 13 in New Delhi. One can see there is not much time between the Duleep Trophy final and the first T20I. Normally, the Indian team congregates quite a few days before an international assignment. Basically, it’s as simple as this: play the Duleep final and join the Indian team at the earliest at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi, which will host all three matches against the Afghans. It’s clear the BCCI is ready to make a concession for both the players.
It may be noted that it’s the Afghan team which is the host of this series. The team from Central Asia doesn’t play any cricket in their own country due to a lack of facilities and other issues. For the past several years, they have either played their games in the UAE or India.
Anyway, Varma, who scored a century and a fifty in the semifinal against North Zone, is looking forward to playing in the Duleep Trophy final. He doesn’t mind if he has to rush to Delhi as soon as the contest gets over in Chennai.
“I would love to play the final. This match has just finished, but I think the Afghanistan game is on the 13th. I am ready to play the final. After that, we have two days of break in between, and if I report on the 11th also, I can practise for a day and from there I can go and play the match,” Varma, who is deputy to Shreyas Iyer in T20Is, said after inspiring South Zone to the final earlier this week.
Earlier this year, Afghanistan toured India for a one-off Test and a three-ODI series in June, and they lost all four contests. But the nature of the T20 format often narrows the gap between teams, and they would hope to secure at least one win in the upcoming matches. Afghanistan’s men’s team has never beaten India in any of the formats.
