Though international cricket has resumed with ongoing England vs West Indies Test series, Indian cricketers are yet to hit the ground running with a proper camp in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before taking part in any competitive match, players will have to regain an optimum level of fitness. Therefore, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is mulling to organise a training camp for its players in Ahmedabad under a bio-secure bubble in the lead up to the IPL 2020, which is set to take place in UAE from late September to early November.
With this development, the speculations regarding veteran wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni’s participation in the camp have already started.
Will Dhoni be a part of BCCI’s training camp in Ahmedabad? The answer to this question is ‘No’.
Training camp only for ‘BCCI-contracted players’
The camp that will be organised – reportedly in Motera Stadium – is only for the BCCI contracted players. As per the 2019-20 contract, Dhoni isn’t a part of the BCCI central contracts. This makes him ineligible for the training camp. Having played no international cricket for the past 12 months, Dhoni isn’t expected to be a part of the 2020-21 BCCI central contracts either. Hence, his inclusion in the camp, at least on the technical grounds, is not possible.
At present, these are the players who will be a part of the training camp:
Grade A+
- Virat Kohli (c)
- Rohit Sharma
- Jasprit Bumrah
Grade A
- Ravichandran Ashwin
- Ravindra Jadeja
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Cheteshwar Pujara
- Ajinkya Rahane
- KL Rahul
- Shikhar Dhawan
- Mohammed Shami
- Ishant Sharma
- Kuldeep Yadav
- Rishabh Pant
Grade B
- Wriddhiman Saha
- Umesh Yadav
- Yuzvendra Chahal
- Hardik Pandya
- Mayank Agarwal
Grade C
- Kedar Jadhav
- Navdeep Saini
- Deepak Chahar
- Manish Pandey
- Hanuma Vihari
- Shardul Thakur
- Shreyas Iyer
- Washington Sundar
Well, Dhoni had begun training in the lead up to the IPL 2020, which was initially scheduled to start on March 29. After taking to the nets at Ranchi, he landed in Chennai in the first week of March and trained extensively with a few of his Chennai Super Kings (CSK) teammates, including Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu and Piyush Chawla.
However, Dhoni’s plans got jeopardized by the coronavirus outbreak as the pandemic forced the BCCI to postpone the cash-rich event.
