Team India regulars — except Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah — will be part of the season opener Duleep Trophy, which begins on September 5 and will be held in Anantapur and Bengaluru.
The squads, announced on Wednesday, were only for the tournament’s first round, while the BCCI added that those who get chosen for the home Test series against Bangladesh will be replaced in the latter part of the tournament.
The two-Test series against Bangladesh begins in Chennai on September 19.
Gautam Gambhir, upon his arrival as India’s head coach, was quite clear about the national team regulars giving due importance to domestic cricket. Given the squads, his opinion has certainly been taken very seriously by the players as even most of the
IPL regulars are there in the four squads.
“Rohit and Kohli weren’t too keen on playing. So, that was considered. As for Bumrah, Team India need him fresh for the important matches and series,” a BCCI official said.
The tournament will also mark the comeback of keeper-batsman Rishabh Pant in red-ball cricket. The December 22-25, 2022, Test against Bangladesh at Mirpur was Pant’s last red-ball appearance before he met with that horrific car
accident a few days later.
Pant has been included in Team B, which will be led by Bengal top-order batsman
Abhimanyu Easwaran and also features the skipper’s state teammate Mukesh Kumar, besides Ravindra Jadeja,
Mohammed Siraj, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan
and his younger brother Musheer Khan, Washington Sundar and N. Jagadeesan among others.
As for the other sides, Team A will be led by Shubman Gill, Team C by Ruturaj Gaikwad and Team D by Shreyas Iyer. Suryakumar Yadav will
be playing for Team C while Mohammed Shami hasn’t been picked.
The participation of Andhra pacer all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, who had impressed for Sunrisers Hyderabad in this year’s IPL, is subject to fitness. The youngster has just recovered from sports hernia.
