Duleep Trophy an essential platform for preparation, seizing opportunities, says Jay Shah

New Delhi: Jay Shah, the BCCI Secretary, believes the Duleep Trophy is an essential platform for all players to prepare and seize opportunities ahead of the 2024/25 home season. India’s domestic season for this year will open with the Duleep Trophy first-round games at Bengaluru and Anantapur respectively.

This 61st edition of the tournament features a new format, with four teams - A, B, C, and D - chosen by national selectors, playing instead of the six zonal-based teams that competed in the previous editions. “The 2024-25 Domestic season is set to kick off tomorrow with the prestigious Duleep Trophy! It’s an exciting start as four teams, featuring some of the finest longer format cricketers in the country will go head to head.”

“With a packed red-ball calendar ahead for Team India, this tournament is an essential platform for preparation and seizing opportunities. There’s something special about red-ball cricket ~ the purest form of the game and it’s great to see the season starting on this strong note. Best of luck to all the players selected. Looking forward to witnessing some outstanding performances in the days to come!” wrote Shah, who will take charge as ICC Chairman, on his social media accounts.

For the first-round games starting on Thursday, Team A will face Team B at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, while Team C will face Team D at the Rural Development Trust Stadium in Anantapur.

Four teams will face each other once in a four-day First-Class match as part of the round-robin group stage, with a total of six matches to be played. Each team will play three matches, and the tournament winner will be crowned based on who has the most points.

India's white-ball vice-captain Shubman Gill will captain Team A, while Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran will captain Team B. Chennai Super Kings' captain Ruturaj Gaikwad will lead Team C, while 2024 IPL winning skipper Shreyas Iyer will captain Team D.

In all 19 capped India players, including Yashasvi Jaiswal, Arshdeep Singh, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Dhruv Jurel, Shivam Dube, Sarfaraz Khan, Mayank Agarwal, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, and others will be in action alongside several domestic players. Gill had already confirmed that pacer Prasidh Krishna is not available for a first-round game.

Duleep Trophy Round One squads:

India A: Shubman Gill (C), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (WK), KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.

India B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).

India C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Gaurav Yadav, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Kamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.

India D: Shreyas Iyer (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.