Patidar Pulls Out of India A Squad as Badoni Steps In and Rinku Takes the Vice-Captaincy

Rajat Patidar will not be going to Doha. The batter has withdrawn from India's squad for the ACC Rising Stars Asia Cup, informing the Board of Control for Cricket in India that he does not wish to be considered for 50-over selection while he manages existing injuries. The BCCI confirmed the change on Sunday, and with it, a squad that had looked settled suddenly has a new shape.

Patidar's withdrawal carries more weight than a routine squad tweak, because he had been named vice-captain of the Tilak Varma-led side. That is the role the selectors trusted him with, and it is the role that now passes to Rinku Singh, while Delhi all-rounder Ayush Badoni comes into the fifteen in Patidar's place.

It is a change that says something about where Patidar's season stands. He captained Madhya Pradesh in three matches in the first leg of the Ranji Trophy, scoring hundreds against Puducherry and Bihar, and before that he was part of the India A side that went down 2-1 to Australia A in the one-dayers in Puducherry, making two half-centuries in three games. The runs have been there. The body, evidently, has not been quite as willing. His decision to step back from the 50-over format for now reads as a cricketer choosing the long game over one more tournament — the kind of call that rarely makes headlines but often decides careers.

For Badoni, it is the opposite kind of story. The Delhi all-rounder has been in the kind of form that makes selectors take notice whether they planned to or not: 559 runs in four Ranji Trophy games, including two double-hundreds. Numbers like that do not stay quiet for long, and the call-up is the reward. He walks into a squad full of players who have already had a taste of the bigger stage — Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Harshit Rana — and a tournament that, for all its development billing, is played with real intensity.

The Rising Stars Asia Cup runs in Doha from November 19 to 29, and India A have been drawn in Group B alongside Pakistan A, Nepal and the United Arab Emirates. Their campaign opens against Nepal at the West End Park International Stadium on November 20, before the meeting with Pakistan A on November 22 that will draw the most attention. The final is set for November 29. Tilak Varma continues as captain, with Rinku now his deputy, and the squad around them is young, aggressive and — on paper — one of the strongest in the field.

There is a wider point here too. India A is where the next generation is supposed to announce itself, and tournaments like this one have a habit of producing players who are in the senior side within a year. Patidar knows that better than most: he has been around the senior setup, he has led an IPL franchise, and he understands exactly what this tournament is for. That he has chosen to sit it out, and to say so plainly through the BCCI, suggests the injury picture is one he does not want to gamble with.

So the squad flies to Doha a little different from the one that was named. One vice-captain out, another in. One batter managing his body, another arriving in the form of his life. The tournament will tell us soon enough whether the swap mattered. What it has already told us is that Patidar is thinking beyond November — and that Badoni, given his chance, intends to make it count.