Ranji Trophy 2024-25: Third Round Starts Sans Many Big Names - Here's Why

The third round of the Ranji Trophy 2024-25 started on Saturday, 26th October with 19 matches between 38 teams in different groups of the elite and plate category. (More Cricket News)

But the third-round matches of the Ranji Trophy saw a pool of big names missing from their respective teams playing XI due to various reasons. More than 40 seasoned players are not taking part in the third-round matches of India's biggest domestic cricket tournament.

Every major team is affected by this and now they have to play with a depleted team in the third round of the matches. 16 matches are being played in the Elite category and three matches started on Saturday in the Plate category.

Tamil Nadu, who won their first match by an inning and 70 runs against Saurashtra and drew the second match against Delhi at Arun Jaitley Stadium, have to play without their full-time captain R Sai Kishore, star batter Washington Sundar and B Sai Sudharsan due to various reasons.

Kishore was part of the India 'A' team which ended their campaign on Friday after losing to Afghanistan in the second semi-final in Oman. Sundar earned a national call-up after three years and is presently playing for the senior men's Test team against New Zealand in Pune. Sudharsan was named for India 'A' squad which will be led by Ruturaj Gaikwad and will travel to Australia for Test matches.

Bengal, Punjab and Delhi missed four players each from their respective set-ups before the third round. Most of them are part of India 'A' team participating in the ACC Men's T20 Emerging Teams Asia Cup 2024 held in Al Amerat, Oman.

Nehal Wadhera, Anuj Rawat, Ayush Badoni, Ramandeep Singh, Hrithik Shokeen, Prabhsimran Singh, Abhishek Sharma were part of the India A side in Oman.

Bengal's Akash Deep is playing for the senior men's Test team and missed Bengal's third-round match against Kerala.

Mumbai's team was also affected before their third match against Tripura in the Ranji Trophy. Suryakumar Yadav took a leave due to personal reasons, Shreyas Iyer was rested due to a shoulder injury and Prithvi Shaw was rested because of fitness issues and was advised by the board to reduce body fat if he wishes to play in the next round.

Sarfaraz Khan is playing for the senior men's team and his brother Musheer Khan is recovering from an injury that he suffered in a car accident.

Moreover, BCCI announced two squads - India's Tour of South Africa for 4 T20Is and India's Tour of Australia for 5 Test matches on Friday night which may affect the coming fixtures of the ongoing Ranji Trophy adversely.

Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel and Abhimanyu Easwaran earned Test call-ups for the tour of Australia. Khaleel Ahmed, Navdeep Saini, and Mukesh Kumar will also travel as reserves and that means these players will not be available for the Ranji Trophy till the start of January.

For the four T20Is, Rinku Singh, Suryakumar Yadav, and Hardik Pandya will go to South Africa along with some new faces. Ramandeep Singh and Vijaykumar Vyshak earned their maiden national call-up for the T20Is.

Additionally, the speedster Mayank Yadav and all-rounder Shivam Dube are injured. Riyan Parag and Kuldeep Yadav have been referred to the BCCI Centre of Excellence for long-term resolution of their injuries.

There was a similar situation during the recently concluded Duleep Trophy. Initially, it was expected that many prominent players would participate, and the national team would be selected based on their performances. However, one by one, several seasoned players withdrew from their teams and opted not to participate in domestic cricket.