The domestic cricket season is set to commence with the Duleep Trophy, and the squads for the tournament have been announced. The Duleep Trophy 2024-25 will begin on September 5, 2024, in Anantapur and Bengaluru.
Dhruv Jurel and Kuldeep Yadav have been named in Team A for the Duleep Trophy. Shubman Gill will captain the team. The team also includes Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, and Shaswat Rawat.
Kuldeep Yadav's inclusion will bolster the team's spin attack. His experience in international cricket will be valuable in the Duleep Trophy. Dhruv Jurel is a wicketkeeper-batsman who has been making steady progress in domestic cricket. He will look to impress with both bat and gloves in the Duleep Trophy.
The Duleep Trophy is a prestigious tournament that features teams from different zones of India. This year, the tournament format has changed, and there will be four teams competing against each other. Each team will play the other three sides once. The tournament will consist of six matches.
Other squads have also been announced. Team B will be led by Abhimanyu Easwaran and includes 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. Ruturaj Gaikwad will lead Team C, which includes Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel, Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal and Sandeep Warrier. Shreyas Iyer will lead Team D, which includes Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan, Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat and Saurabh Kumar.
Several players who were initially named in the Duleep Trophy squads have been selected for India's Test squad for the series against Bangladesh. These players will be replaced in their respective Duleep Trophy teams. Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel, Kuldeep Yadav, and Akash Deep have been named in India's Test squad. Mayank Agarwal will now captain India-A. Pratham Singh, Akshay Wadkar, Shaik Rasheed, Shams Mulani and Aaqib Khan have been named as replacements. Axar Patel, who is in the India squad, will be replaced by Nishant Sindhu in India-D. Tushar Deshpande is ruled out of the second round due to a niggle and will be replaced by Vidwath Kaverappa from India-A. Suryakumar Yadav was also ruled out of the Duleep Trophy due to injury.
