Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s names were missing from the team 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, while Rishabh Pant will be making his return to red-ball cricket for the first time after his recovering from the car accident in 2022.
The revamped red-ball competition starts on September 5 in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, and M Chinnaswamy stadium, Bengaluru. yhe tournament will feature four teams – India A, India B, India C, and India D with Shubman Gill, Abhimanyu Eswaran, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Shreyas Iyer named captains for the respective teams.
The four squads for the first round of the tournament are as below: –
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.
The players who will be selected to represent India for the home Test series against Bangladesh will be replaced in the Duleep Trophy. Nitish Kumar Reddy’s participation in the Duleep Trophy is subject to fitness.
Duleep Trophy began in 1961-62 and over the years has undergone several changes. From a six-team competition (each representing a zone), it has now been changed to a four-team affair – India A, India B, India C and India D.
It will be played in a round-robin format and the team finishing at the top of the standings after three rounds will win the competition.
