The India opener, who had sat out the three day game between the Board President's XI and South Africa at Baroda this weekend owing to unfitness, informed the North Zone selectors that he was still unfit to take his place as captain of the North Zone side to play East Zone in the Duleep Trophy match to be played at the Firozeshah Kotla in New Delhi from Wednesday November 20.
One day star Ajay Jadeja will lead the zone in Sidhu's place.
Meanwhile, informed opinion is that Sidhu's latest withdrawal despite the fact that the batsman has said he will be fit for the next Duleep Trophy game, scheduled for November 27 - has harmed his chances for a berth in the Indian side for the upcoming tours of South Africa and the West Indies. The selectors - or so goes the thinking - will be very hesitant about picking Sidhu for an arduous tour, given his tendency to contract injuries at the drop of a hat.
The 33-year-old batsman, who boasts 40-plus averages in both Tests (six centuries in 36 Tests) and one-dayers (five hundreds in 108 games), has throughout his career suffered from two problems: one is injury, the second is a tendency to run himself, or his partner, out.
In fact, Sidhu began his international career with a run out. And in his last three appearances for the country, he was dismissed in the same fashion.
More to the point, the 1995-1996 season has been particularly disastrous for the injury-prone batsman.
Late in 1995, he pulled out from leading the Rest of India side against Ranji champions Bombay thanks to a finger injury.
He then returned for the first two Tests against New Zealand, then missed the first two games of the following one-day series between the two sides, again thanks to injury.
Then came the Wills World Cup, and Sidhu was dropped after the first two games, this time due to loss of form. He returned to the side to crack a match-winning 91 against Pakistan in the quarter-final in Bangalore.
After that, he remained in the side through the one day competitions in Sharjah and Singapore, and went with the Indian team to England. Two bad performances in the first two Texaco Trophy one-dayers saw Sidhu dropped from the side for the third game, leading to the famous walkout.
Back home in India, Sidhu was disciplined with a 50 day ban imposed by the BCCI. The ban did not, however, include domestic cricket - so Sidhu turned out for an Irani Trophy match and again suffered a thumb injury.
This caused him to miss the first three Titan Cup games. Recalled for the second half of the league phase of that tournament, Sidhu ran himself out for low scores and, in the event, suffered an alleged forearm injury at Mohali during the daynight game against Australia.
He hasn't played cricket at any level since.
In fact, Sidhu who made his debut in 1983 against the West Indies suffered a bad slipped disc a year later, and was out of international cricket till he came back with a bang in the 1987 Reliance World Cup. However, a thumb injury ruled him out of the following series against the West Indies.
Sidhu then toured New Zealand in 1990, only to return midway through with a broken arm. Again, in 1992, he was picked for the tour of Australia, but pulled out of the side due to unfitness.
Interestingly, Sidhu - who has in recent times come in for much criticism for his habit of missing crucial domestic games has played a mere ten Ranji Trophy games in the last six years, and just 34 Ranji games in his entire career. ``I know people think I shirk domestic games, but I have always been sincere about my cricket, people are welcome to think what they please,'' was all the lanky Indian opener, whose absence through unfitness forced the selectors to opt for Mongia as stop gap opener against South Africa for the first Test on November 20, would say on the subject.