Duleep Trophy: Shubman Gill, Faiz Fazal, Priyank Panchal Named Captains
Shubman Gill had expressed disappointment after being overlooked for the senior team's West Indies tour despite performing well for the India A side.
Highlights
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Duleep Trophy will be played from August 17 to September 9 in Bengaluru
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India Green and India Red will be led by Faiz Fazal and Priyank Panchal
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Most of the current India A players have got chances in the squads
Shubman Gill, who had expressed disappointment after being overlooked for the West Indies tour despite performing well for India A side, will get another chance to impress the selectors during Duleep Trophy which will be played from August 17 to September 9 at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Leading the India Blue squad in the three-team tournament, Gill will have the opportunity to impress the selectors not only with the bat but also with his leadership skills.
The other two teams, namely India Green and India Red, will be led by Vidarbha Ranji champion skipper Faiz Fazal and India A regular Priyank Panchal respectively.
Most of the current India A players along with performers from Vidarbha and other Ranji teams have got chances in the squads.
The likes of Abhimanyu Easwaran, Anmolpreet Singh, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Gopal, Jayant Yadav, Axar Patel, all of whom have played at least one format for India A in the West Indies A tour, are there.
India discards like Karun Nair and Varun Aaron are also in the mix just like last season's highest run-scorer Milind Kumar of Sikkim or talented left-arm seamer from Rajasthan Tanveer ul Haq.
The season-opening Duleep Trophy, which has been India's only day-night first-class tournament with pink ball for the last three seasons, is set to go back to the day format with red ball due to lack of TV coverage.
The BCCI's GM (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim confirmed that save the final from September 5-9, which will be telecast live on Star Sports, all the other matches will be traditional red-ball games like the old times.
"We have floodlights at the Chinnaswamy, but we are not playing with pink ball under lights as there is no live coverage. Only the final match will be a day/night affair as that's the only match to be aired live" Karim told PTI on Tuesday.
Asked if this will be a roadblock in moving towards pink ball Tests in future, Karim disagreed.
"I don't think so. If everyone associated with Indian cricket is on the same page, maybe we can think of having India A first class games with pink balls. I am not saying anything is confirmed but you never know if everyone comes on same page," Karim said.
However, a senior BCCI official said the decision to scrap pink balls save the final has been done keeping bigger picture in mind.
"The Indian team is not playing any pink ball cricket in near future. All our Test engagements are a part of World Test Championship. And we are not playing any Day/Night games in World Test Championship," the senior official told PTI on condition of anonymity.
"So, what's the logic of our supply line of players playing a tournament with pink ball when they are in any case going to play red ball cricket if selected for India," he said.
Squads:
India Blue: Shubman Gill (capt), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajat Patidar, Anmolpreet Singh, Ricky Bhui, Ankeet Bawne, Snell Patel (wk), Shreyas Gopal, Saurabh Kumar, Jalaj Saxena, Tushar Deshpande, Basil Thampi, Diwesh Pathania, Aniket Choudhary, Ashutosh Amar.
India Green: Faiz Fazal (capt), Akshath Reddy, Dhruv Shorey, Priyam Garg, Siddesh Lad, Akshdeep Nath, Rahul Chahar, Dharmendra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Ankit Rajpoot, Ishan Porel, Tanveer ul Haq, Akshay Wadkar (wk), Rajesh Mohanty, Milind Kumar.
India Red: Priyank Panchal (capt), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Ishan Kishan (wk), Harpreet Bhatia, Aditya Sarwate, Mahipal Lomror, Akshay Wakhare, Varun Aaron, Ronit More, Jaydev Unadkat, Sandeep Warrier, Ankit Kalsi.
(With PTI inputs)
M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru