Sunil Gavaskar, in one of his columns, mentioned how after 30s, cricketers’ memory muscle starts to wane. He, in the same piece at the time, would write about the importance of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma playing the Duleep Trophy ahead of the home Test series against Bangladesh and New Zealand. However, both players opted out back then. Fast forward to the present, things have changed; both players have retired from both T20Is and Tests but remain part of ODIs. With a limited number of 50-over games available for the players to play, the debate over whether Rohit and Kohli should play the Vijay Hazare trophy has heated up. Giving his view, former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra said it is “bogus talk.”
“The chatter about playing the Vijay Hazare Trophy — the tournament will happen in November–December. What’s the point? There are nine ODIs for India till the next IPL (3 vs Australia in October, 3 vs South Africa in November, and 3 against New Zealand in January 2026). That’s about it — just nine days of cricket action for you. That would be over 100 days since you played an IPL match and the next ODI you play. You’re not playing at all. You’re not practising,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
“A three-match series gets over in seven to eight days. Then the next one would be after three months. Gaps are just incredibly huge, and you won’t play first-class cricket in between. It’s true that had they continued playing Test cricket and left ODIs, staying in the groove would have been a lot easier,” Chopra added.
“Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli don’t have to play the Vijay Hazare Trophy — they wouldn’t be selected based on their performance in the tournament, let’s be honest about this. It’s bogus talk. If they had played Tests and left ODIs, staying in the groove would have been easier,” Chopra opined.
“When you have retired from Tests, and ODI cricket is not played much, it is not going to make a lot of sense. So just two months of high-intensity IPL, where you would get to play 14 to 16 innings, and then you would play three matches after six months, and then three matches after another three months — I think it is very, very difficult,” he concluded on the matter.
