Both Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav will be available for a single game for Mumbai in Buchi Babu Invitational Tournament.
Mumbai: India cricketer Shreyas Iyer will be playing a single match for Mumbai in the upcoming Buchi Babu Invitational tournament to be held in Tamil Nadu, starting Thursday. The right-hander, who is out of BCCI Central Contracts currently, will be joining India T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav in playing for Mumbai in the second-round match in Coimbatore from August 27 to 30.
“Shreyas Iyer will play for Mumbai at Buchi Babu Invitational tournament organized by Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. He will be playing vs Jammu & Kashmir from 27th August at Coimbatore,” MCA joint secretary Deepak Patil said in a release. Iyer made a comeback to the Indian side earlier this month during the ODI series in Sri Lanka. The 12-team tournament will feature Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Hyderabad, Bengal, Mumbai, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat along with TNCA XI and TNCA President’s XI.
The multi-day tournament will be held at Tirunelveli, Coimbatore, Salem and Natham. Left-handed wicketkeeper, Ishan Kishan, who was also dropped from BCCI Central Contracts along with Iyer, will also play in the same tournament. Kishan is reportedly set to lead Jharkhand.
Among other Indian top cricketers to play domestic cricket this season are Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who have been asked by the BCCI to play in Duleep Trophy. Post India’s T20 World Cup win in June, most of the top Indian cricketers are enjoying a prolonged break.
While the BCCI sent a completely new team with several new faces in the tour of Zimbabwe, the likes of Rohit, Virat, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav among the few, featured in the white-ball series against Sri Lanka. With no such white-ball series in line (baring T20Is against South Africa) the focus shifts to Tests as India will be playing Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia in the rest of 2024.
With such a long break, featuring in the domestic tournaments like Buchi Babu and Duleep Trophy will help them get into red-ball mode ahead of the Bangladesh Tests.