New Delhi: "Does anyone keep himself away from playing for India for that long as Dhoni, is the real question", feel former India captain Sunil Gavaskar. MS Dhoni has not been action since team India's heart-breaking semi-final exit from 2019 World Cup in England. Speaking after giving the 26th Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial lecture, Gavaskar said that he can't speak on Dhoni's fitness.

"I can't tell you anything about fitness. But I think the question that needs to be asked is of MSD himself," Gavaskar told reporters.

"He has not made himself available to play for India since July 10. That is the important point. Does anyone keep himself away from playing for India for that long? That is the question and therein lies the answer," he said.

Since Dhoni's absence, BCCI has pushed young wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant as India's main man behind the stumps ahead of the upcoming 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia.

"IPL dominates Ranji Trophy. Unless match fees are increased substantially, it (Ranji Trophy) will be considered an orphan and poor cousin of Indian cricket," he said.

"Remuneration of Ranji players has not really increased over the last few years and I hope that with Sourav Ganguly being the BCCI president, he will look into it. The disparity between (remuneration of) players who play 14 days of IPL -- who don't always play first class cricket -- and those who play 80 days of Ranji cricket if you play all the matches, is big. Hopefully that will be narrowed down as much as possible," he expressed.

Gavaskar however refused to talk about the International Cricket Council's proposal to bring down the duration of Test matches from five days to four.

"What I think does not matter. It's what the current players think that matterd because they are the ones who will play the matches. They are the ones who should be consulted. They are more aware of the ground situation. I think we can be there and talk but they are well aware of what needs to be done," he said.