New Delhi, Aug 23 (PTI) North Zone coaches Ajay Sharma and Sarandeep Singh came under spotlight after taking a shock decision to drop Ranji Trophy’s third highest run-getter Sanat Sangwan for the Duleep Trophy quarter-final against West Zone in Bengaluru on Sunday.
Sangwan, a left-hander from Delhi’s iconic Sonnet Club, had scored a whopping 828 runs in the previous Ranji Trophy season and was only third in top run-getters’ list behind Ravichandran Smaran (950 runs) and statemate Ayush Doseja (949).
However, in a bizarre and inexplicable selection call, often associated with players from Delhi & Districts Cricket Association (DDCA), the North Zone team management comprising head coach Ajay Sharma and assistant coach Sarandeep Singh decided to field former India U-19 skipper Yash Dhull, who is not a specialist opener.
Dhull’s selection in the North Zone team was surprising since he tallied only 381 runs in the 2025-26 Ranji season. He was sent alongside Jammu and Kashmir’s Qamran Iqbal.
Qamran, who scored a double hundred in Ranji Trophy, was an automatic choice and so was Sangwan as players are primarily auditioning for a spot in the India A ‘Test’ side for home series against Australia ‘A’ late September.
Dhull, who has never performed well in domestic red ball cricket against quality attack, was out for 9 off 26 deliveries. He was distinctly uncomfortable against the Mumbai duo of Tushar Deshpande and Shardul Thakur.
It was Thakur who ended Dhull’s misery as he was caught by Prithvi Shaw with North Zone scoring only 251 in its first innings.
DDCA president Rohan Jaitley didn’t respond to the query from PTI but secretary Ashok Sharma expressed his helplessness.
“In zonal matches, it is the coaches who decide the playing eleven. Ajay (head coach) and Sarandeep (assistant coach) are the two coaches. I can’t sit here and say why they didn’t pick Sanat and played Yash,” Sharma said.
Another senior DDCA official who has tracked the developments closely felt that Dhull’s latest string of big scores in Delhi Premier League (DPL) could have prompted the two coaches to pick him ahead of Sangwan.
But then how can a proper opener with performances to match be replaced by someone on the basis of T20 performances and that too in a state T20 league.
It is not a coincidence that for past two seasons, Sarandeep as the head coach of the senior Delhi team had persisted with Dhull despite poor returns in red ball cricket.
Incidentally, Ajay Sharma, who was once banned for his alleged involvement in the 2000 match-fixing scandal, is a Delhi domestic legend.
He was the head coach of the Jammu and Kashmir team that won the Ranji Trophy last season.
J&K has the maximum representation in the North Zone playing eleven, featuring five players including captain Kanhaiya Wadhawan, Qamran, Abdul Samad, Abid Mushtaq and Sunil Kumar.
Delhi has three players in the side: Dhull, vice-captain Ayush Badoni and Ayush Doseja while Haryana has two players in Nishant Sindhu and Anshul Kamboj. Punjab is being represented by Arshdeep Singh.
The exclusion of Sangwan from the playing eleven has once again raised questions whether BCCI should entrust the national selectors to pick the squads, doing away with the zonal system where personal biases work against players.
One DDCA official, who belongs to the opposition faction, said: “Since it was difficult to fit in Dhull in the middle-order where Doseja, Badoni, Samad and Sindhu are performers, the only person who could have been made the scapegoat was Sanat Sangwan, who doesn’t have a lot of backing in DDCA.” In case, North loses this game to West Zone, it would mean that the North Zone team management (Ajay, Sarandeep and skipper Kanhaiya) denied Ranji Trophy’s third highest run-getter an audition before the national selection committee. PTI KHS KHS APS APS
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