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Former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali has expressed surprise over veteran Indian batter Cheteshwar Pujara not being picked in any of the squads for the Duleep Trophy 2024. Basit opined that Pujara would have been a handy batter for the 2024-25 Australia tour had he been kept in contention for a place in the Test team.
The BCCI, on Wednesday, August 14, named the four squads for the first round of the Duleep Trophy 2024, which will be played from September 5 to September 8. Apart from Pujara, there was no place for the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson and Rinku Singh as well.
Sharing his thoughts on the squads named for the first round of Duleep Trophy 2024, Basit said that he was perplexed over a few prominent names being left out. On his YouTube channel, the former Pakistan batter said:
"I saw the teams and I am surprised that 3-4 names are not there. Ajinkya Rahane is not there. Cheteshwar Pujara is not there. Sanju Samson is not there. Rinku Singh is not there. Shivam Dube has been picked. I think he is being readied as an all-rounder. Let’s see who performs in the Duleep Trophy.
"Pujara could have been of good use in Australia. I am surprised that he is not there despite Gautam Gambhir being there [as India coach]. Even Rinku Singh in not there. Again, considering the Gambhir factor, this is rather surprising," the 53-year-old added.
Among the players selected for the first round of Duleep Trophy 2024, Shubman Gill will lead Team A, and Abhimanyu Easwaran has been named captain of Team B, Team C will be led by Ruturaj Gaikwad, while Shreyas Iyer has been given charge of Team D.
KL Rahul, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel are some of the prominent names selected for the first round of Duleep Trophy 2024.
Why Pujara's Duleep Trophy 2024 snub is not surprising
While Pujara was the mainstay of the Indian Test batting line-up at one point of time, it seems highly unlikely that he would make a return to the national side.
The 36-year-old last represented India in the World Test Championship final against Australia at The Oval in June 2023. He registered scores of 14 and 27 as India lost by 209 runs.
In his overall Test career, Pujara has featured in 103 matches, scoring 7195 runs at an average of 43.60, with 19 hundreds and 35 fifties. However, since the start of 2020, he has averaged only 29.69 in 28 Tests, with just one hundred.
