When India Players Turn Up, It Raises Quality of Domestic Cricket: Sachin Tendulkar

The Indian cricket icon, Sachin Tendulkar gave massive praise to the BCCI for taking the step to improve the quality of India’s domestic circuit.

Tendulkar uploaded a lengthy post on X where he highlighted the importance of top-quality players taking part in Indian domestic cricket.

Looking back on his long career, the Mumbaikar revealed that during his time in the FC format, he enjoyed his time playing with the national team teammates. He said,” Growing up, we had almost 7-8 India players in our dressing room, and it was fun to play alongside them.”

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The Indian legend sees the participation of international players as a way to increase the quality of youngsters coming through the ranks and also a chance to see new talents bloom and a chance for the recognised players to go back to their roots.

Tendulkar mentioned,” When India players turn up for their domestic teams, it raises the quality of play for youngsters and sometimes new talent is identified. It also gives the national players a chance to sometimes rediscover the basics.”

The BCCI had earlier released their annual retainership for the 2023-24 season. The release also mentioned,” The BCCI has recommended that all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team.”

The highlight during this announcement was the exclusion of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan who according to the release ‘were not considered for the annual contracts’.

Iyer, missed Mumbai’s previous fixture against Baroda despite reportedly being medically cleared by the National Cricket Academy (NCA) to play the match. He has now taken part in the semi-finals but failed to make a good impression as he was dismissed early into his innings.

Kishan on the other hand, has taken an indefinite break after being released from India’s squad for the South Africa tour, citing personal reasons. He also missed Jharkhand’s Ranji Trophy fixtures following the exit and now is making his return to competitive cricket by taking part in the DY Patil T20 tournament.

Tendulkar also went on to praise the semi-final fixtures that took place. Mumbai managed to beat Tamil Nadu thanks to a brilliant batting performance from Shardul Thakur who raised his first FC century. Vidarbha who are still playing their match against Madhya Pradesh will go into the final day with both sides having the chance to win in Nagpur as the hosts require four wickets while MP needs 94 runs to win.