The BCCI selection committee announced the squads for the first round of the Duleep Trophy, 2024-2025.
The names of the star India players, including Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravichandran Ashwin were missing. The Duleep Trophy marks the beginning of red-ball cricket in the domestic season, giving youngsters and emerging talent to compete against some of the finest players from international cricket. The tournament is set to begin from September 5, 2024, in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh and M Chinnaswamy stadium, Bengaluru.
Other key Indian players, including India’s ODI and T20I vice-captain Shubman Gill. KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja alongside T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav will be taking part in the tournament. The BCCI in its release informed that the players who will be selected in India’s squad for the home Test series against Bangladesh will be replaced in the Duleep Trophy. Nitish Kumar Reddy’s participation in the Duleep Trophy has been subjected to fitness, after he missed out from the T20I series against Zimbabwe.
Kishan returns, Pant’s red-ball comeback awaited
The tournament will also mark the return of out-of-favour wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan. It was learnt that the selectors were also thinking about giving Rishabh Pant a go in the Duleep Trophy. However, that did not happen as the 26-year-old is yet to kickstart his first red-ball assignment after coming back from the horrific car accident in 2022. Since his return, Pant has been a part of India’s white-ball set-up and the wicketkeeper batter also donned the national jersey in the T20 World Cup.
Mohammed Shami, who has been recuperating from surgery, will not feature in the tournament.
However, the availability of the top players will also be subject to the dates of the preparatory camp that the team management is mulling holding in Chennai ahead of the Tests against Bangladesh.
The four squads for the first round of the tournament are –
Team A: Shubman Gill (C), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.
Team B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant, Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).
Team C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.
Team D: Shreyas lyer (C), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (WK), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (WK), Saurabh Kumar.