Shubman Gill (Twitter)
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the first-round squads of the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2024-2025 on Wednesday, August 14. Shubman Gill, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Shreyas Iyer have been named as captains as the tournament is set to begin on September 5, 2024, and will be played in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh and M Chinnaswamy stadium, in Bengaluru.
India Captain Rohit Sharma has been rested from the tournament while senior cricketers Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah have been given a break before the home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand. On the other hand, the selectors have clarified that the players who will be called up for the two-match series against Bangladesh will leave the camp after the first round, and will be replaced with other players.
Meanwhile, youngster Nitish Kumar Reddy’s participation in the tournament is subject to injury. He recently missed the five-match T20I series against Zimbabwe and if the cricketer manages to gain full fitness, he will be joining the B team. In case he is ruled out, the selectors will announce a replacement.
Senior cricketers KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Suryakumar Yadav will be playing in the first round of the competition. Pant’s fitness will be closely monitored and if he manages to prove himself, the keeper-batter can make it to India’s Test squad. The focus will also be on Prasidh, who will make his comeback after injury.
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.