Even as the clamour around contracted Indian players to play domestic cricket grows, the Hyderabad Cricket Association has not received any word from Mohammed Siraj yet to confirm his availability for the next round of the Ranji Trophy which begins in four days. According to a report in The Times of India, the team management is yet to get an update on Siraj ahead of their next match against Himachal Pradesh at home.

Indian selectors, led by Ajit Agarkar, left out Siraj from the Champions Trophy claiming that he lacked skills with the older ball. With tracks in Dubai expected to not favour pacers a lot, as they did in the Caribbean leg of last year’s T20 World Cup, India chose to stick with the four-spinners formula which includes Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar in the mix.

While India skipper Rohit Sharma did acknowledge Siraj’s absence makes the team look a little inexperienced, he provided the reasoning behind leaving out the pacer who was a member of their campaigns in the last two ICC events in limited-overs cricket.

"We are yet to get an update. As of now, we haven't heard anything on him from the HCA," a member of the team management told The Times of India.

"We wanted Arshdeep (Singh) to come and play that role of bowling at the back end and (Mohammed) Shami, obviously we saw what he did with the new ball and that is where we feel that Siraj's effectiveness comes down a little bit if he's not going to take the new ball," Rohit had explained to the media on Saturday after the squad reveal.

The India skipper conceded on these grounds it was unfortunate to have Siraj miss out. “Sometimes you have to do that and in that, some players will miss out and it's very, very unlucky and unfortunate. But again, if you talk about everyone, you can't please everyone," Rohit said.

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