Former Australian national cricket team player Brad Hogg criticized the Indian National Cricket Team Star batsman Shreyas Iyer after his central contract snub for skipping the Ranji Trophy and practicing with his Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
Iyer, along with his teammate Ishan Kishan, has become the talk of the town in Indian cricket since the last few weeks. They have been in the news for the wrong reasons as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) punished them for not following their directives.
The BCCI had asked the duo of Iyer and Kishan to play for their respective states in the Ranji Trophy 2024. However, they ignored the BCCI directives and as a result, were removed from the central contract list.
Notably, Shreyas Iyer was recently part of India’s squad for the first two of the five Tests against England but was dropped due to poor performances, while Ishan Kishan has not played for India since withdrawing from the Test squad during the tour of South Africa in December 2023. .
Reports claimed that Shreyas Iyer was declared fit by the National Cricket Academy (NCA) but said he was struggling and subsequently missed the Mumbai Ranji Trophy quarter-finals. Also, he was supposedly training for the IPL with his franchise KKR during that period.
For Shreyas Iyer, you can’t just go and practice with your franchise – Brad Hogg
Former Australian cricketer Brad Hogg spoke about this saga in his latest YouTube video. He criticized Shreyas Iyer for not respecting domestic cricket enough and opined that the batsman should have joined the Mumbai team for the Ranji Trophy after being dropped from the Indian team.
“If you have time to play domestic cricket, you have to do it. For Iyer, you can’t just go and practice with your franchise as I have heard rumors that that has happened. You have to go back to the state team. If you don’t play international cricket, you have to play state cricket, unless you are Virat Kohli, who has played a lot of cricket throughout the year and really needs a break to rejuvenate.”
However, Shreyas Iyer later became available for the Ranji Trophy semi-final and played for the Mumbai National Heavyweights. Although Mumbai comprehensively won the match, Iyer scored only 3 runs in Mumbai’s only innings.
In the video, Brad Hogg also spoke about the appointment of Pat Cummins as the captain of SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He elaborated:
“The only thing Pat Cummins has as captain of the (SRH) team is that he hasn’t been able to be with the group for a long time. He has to learn the franchise and I think it will be a transition period there. But I think Cummins is strong and mature enough to counter that. I think it will be a good acquisition. He will study hard before going out and determine what the best combination will be.”
Players like Cummins, Kishan and Iyer will be seen in action in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, which will begin inn March 22.