India Red to face India Blue in Duleep trophy final

Greater Noida, Sep 9 (IANS) The spotlight will be on India team cricketers Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Shikhar Dhawan, Stuart Binny and Amit Mishra as India Red take on India Blue in the Duleep Trophy final at the Shahid Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex here from Saturday.

The four-day contest is expected to serve two important purposes for the India team regulars. It will provide them match practice ahead of the gruelling three-match Test series at home against New Zealand which starts on September 22.

It will also be a test of the pink ball as it will allow them to provide feedback to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) after playing with it under floodlights.

India Blue reached the Duleep Trophy final on the basis of a massive first innings lead, completing a comprehensive performance against India Green even as the game ended in a draw.

India Red entered the summit clash after a rain-affected game against India Blue ended in a draw with the entire fourth day's play being washed out.

The squads:

India Red: Abhinav Mukund, Shikhar Dhawan, Sudip Chatterjee, Gurkeerat Singh, Yuvraj Singh (captain), Ankush Bains (wicketkeeper), Stuart Binny, Akshay Wakhare, Kuldeep Yadav, Amit Mishra, Nathu Singh, Anureet Singh, Ishwar Pandey, Nitish Rana, Pradeep Sangwan

India Blue: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Mayank Agarwal, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Siddhesh Lad, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Parvez Rasool, Suryakumar Yadav, Karn Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohit Sharma, Pankaj Singh, Abhimanyu Mithun, Sheldon Jackson, Hanuma Vihari

--IANS

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