KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant: The Indian domestic Duleep Trophy is going to start on 5 September. 4 teams will play in it, for which the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has already announced all the squads. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jaspreet Bumrah and Ravichandran Ashwin have been exempted from playing in this tournament. That means they will not play in the tournament.
While Sanju Samson, Rinku Singh and Prithvi Shaw have not been selected. Star fast bowler Mohammed Shami is also out of the tournament due to injury. In September itself, the Indian team has to play a series of 2 Tests and 3 T20 matches against Bangladesh at home.
These 7 players will be under special scrutiny
Due to this, special attention will be on 7 such players in the Duleep Trophy, who are struggling to make a place in the Indian Test team or want to make a comeback. While some will be under pressure to prove their form. These seven players are Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul and Ishan Kishan.
All of them are batsmen, while Rahul, Pant and Ishan are also wicketkeepers. Pant will be under pressure to prove his fitness to return to Test cricket after the car accident. However, he has played T20 and ODI matches. On the other hand, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan will be under pressure to perform well to return to the Indian team.
Surya faces the challenge of making a place in the Test team
Suryakumar Yadav, who performed brilliantly in T20, has proved to be a flop in ODIs. Now he will face the challenge of making a place in the Test team. For this, he will have to perform strongly in terms of Tests. Surya is also the captain of the T20 team. On the other hand, opener Shubman Gill’s place in the Indian team is almost confirmed. He just has to perform better than the other players, so that his place is not threatened.
Star spin all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has retired from the T20 format after the T20 World Cup 2024. But now he will face the challenge of making a place in the Test team. However, like Gill, Jadeja’s place can also be considered almost certain.
Four squads for Duleep Trophy first round
Team A: Shubman Gill (captain), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, KL Rahul, Tilak Verma, Shivam Dubey, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khalil Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwat Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.
Team B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant, Mushir Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (wicketkeeper).
Team C: Rituraj Gaikwad (captain), Sai Sudarshan, Rajat Patidar, Abhishek Porel (wicketkeeper), Suryakumar Yadav, Baba Indrajit, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vaishak Vijaykumar, Anshul Kamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (wicketkeeper), Sandeep Warrior.
Team D: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Atharva Tayde, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thackeray, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Saurabh Kumar.
Bangladesh tour of India
First Test- Chennai- September 19-23
2nd Test – Kanpur – September 27 to October 1
1st T20 – Gwalior – 6 October
2nd T20 – Delhi – 9 October
3rd T20 – Hyderabad – October 12