Selection committee announces Duleep Trophy first-round squads; Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer among the captains
The men's selection committee led by chairman Ajit Agarkar have named the four squads for the first round of the upcoming Duleep Trophy. The red-ball competition, which will kickstart India's domestic season in a way, is begin from September 5 onwards.
Several rumors claimed the potential participation of senior players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, but that is not the case. The stalwarts have been rested keeping the hectic schedule that is to follow in mind. However, the remainder of the contracted players barring Jasprit Bumrah, Ravichandran Ashwin and the ones recovering from injury have been asked to play in the competition.
"The Men’s Selection Committee on Wednesday announced the squads for the first round of the Duleep Trophy, 2024-25. The Duleep Trophy, which marks the beginning of red-ball cricket in the domestic season, will see some of the finest players from the international circuit and some of the young and emerging talent compete at the highest level," BCCI's statement read.
Here are the four squads for the 2024 Duleep Trophy:
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, and 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, and 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), and 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), and Saurabh Kumar.
Shubman Gill was fast-tracked into the white-ball captaincy setup after he served as captain in the tour of Zimbabwe and as vice-captain in the tour of Sri Lanka during the ODI and T20I series. He replaced KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya in the process.
His rise in the leadership ranks continues to rise as he has been named captain of Team A. A notable presence in the squad is in the form of Tilak Varma, who was last seen in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL), before suffering an abrupt injury.
Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Shreyas Iyer will be leading the other three sides. Some other prominent inclusions include star first-team players like KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Arshdeep Singh, Rishabh Pant, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja.
Players named in the Bangladesh Test series will be replaced in the Duleep Trophy
With the home series against Bangladesh scheduled to begin from September 19 onwards, not all players named in the Duleep Trophy squad will be available to play the entirety of the tournament.
As a result, the BCCI have mentioned in their statement that the players leaving for the national squad will be replaced for the remainder of the Duleep Trophy. The statement also includes the fact that all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy's availability is subject to fitness.
The youngster was named in the squad for the Zimbabwe tour after a breakthrough Indian Premier League (IPL) season, but sustained an injury and was ruled out of the series.