MUMBAI: It’s a sign of where things have reached in Indian cricket. Siddhesh Lad is a seasoned first-class player. The 34-year-old Mumbai batter, known as the ‘Crisis Man’ of his team for a long time, made his debut first-class around 12 years back in Nov 2013, and has scored 5623 runs in 82 matches@44.27, with 15 hundreds and 30 fifties. Lad scored five hundreds -he was the top run-getter for Mumbai with 774 runs in eight matches@77.40 in the 2025-26 Ranji Trophy season. However, the consistent domestic cricket batter has now lost faith in the Ranji Trophy being the platform from where national selectors pick potential India players.While speaking to TOI on the sidelines of the jersey launch event of Mumbai South Central Maratha Royals, the defending champions of T20 Mumbai League, on Thursday, Lad stated that he firmly believes that it is performance in the IPL, which is considered as the sole criteria for selection. Season 4 of the T20 Mumbai league begins at the Wankhede Stadium from Monday.Citing the example of Jammu & Kashmir pacer Aaquib Nabi, who was the highest wicket-taker in the Ranji Trophy last season with 60 scalps in 10 matches at 12.56 and helped his team win their maiden title last season, being ignored for the one-off Test against Afghanistan, Lad told this paper, “I think you are 100% right when you say that performing well in the IPL is the benchmark for breaking into the Indian team. The harsh reality is that domestic cricket performances are ignored by the national selectors. The Ranji Trophy has been devalued. I won’t deny that. I’m not saying that I’ve performed well, so pick me into the Indian team, but I think someone like Auqib Nabi, If he has worked so hard and won the Ranji Trophy single-handedly for J&K, which is not so easy, performed exceptionally well in the Ranji Trophy, then he deserved to be picked in India’s Test side.”Explaining his point further, Lad said, “I mean even the IPL players know how difficult it is to play the whole (Ranji Trophy) season and maintain your fitness. However, nowadays, if you don’t do well in the IPL, or don’t have a good season in the IPL, your chances of coming into the Indian Test team are slim. If you don’t play in the IPL, then it is difficult for you to move forward (in your career).”Nabi had taken 44 wickets@13.27 in the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season. Mincing now words at spelling out the harsh reality of Indian cricket, Lad said, “You are sending a wrong message to the domestic cricketers, that even if you do well in Ranji Trophy, it doesn’t make any difference to your cricketing career, but if you do well in a few games in the IPL, you can make it to India’s test team. At the start, everyone is like, ‘If you perform in the Ranji Trophy, then you will play for India, if you don’t perform then you won’t. But in the end, when we really see the selection, that’s when a lot of things go wrong.”In that kind of scenario, would he advise promising youngsters in the Maratha Royals team to focus on playing and doing well in the T20 Mumbai League and the IPL, rather than trying to break into the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team?

“Definitely, I would say that. I won’t deny it that if you see that you can play for India after just one season of the IPL, something that you possibly can’t do after playing Ranji Trophy for a decade, then that means that we can’t tell the players to focus only on the Ranji Trophy. If the player is playing well in the T20 Mumbai League, then there is a shortcut for him to subsequently play in the IPL and make it to the Indian team,” Lad said, matter of factly.As a domestic cricket thoroughbred, Lad is hurt by the way things have shaped up in Indian cricket in present times. “I have seen so many players who have performed exceptionally well in the Ranji Trophy. However, just because they did not get that opportunity in IPL, they never had the chance to come into India’s Test side,” Lad rued.Meanwhile, Lad and Maratha Royals head coach Amit Dani welcomed the availability of Mumbai and Rajasthan Royals pacer Tushar Deshpande, who missed the last season , for the Maratha Royals this time.