BCCI announces the schedule and squads for Duleep Trophy 2017-18

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the schedule and squads for the Duleep Trophy which will kick off the 2017-18 Indian domestic season. Lucknow and Kanpur will be the venues for the four matches in this Duleep Trophy. The tournament, which wasn’t included in the domestic season by the BCCI, until yesterday returned after Sourav Ganguly’s letter and CoA’s involvement.

The Duleep Trophy will be played under the lights with the pink ball in the first-class format with India Blue, India Red and India Green being the teams contesting for the title same as the previous season. The tournament will get underway on September 7th with the three teams facing off once and the two best sides playing each other again in the final which is scheduled to be played on September 25.

Fixtures:

Match 1: 7-10 September – India Red v India Green at Lucknow

Match 2: 13-16 September – India Red v India Blue at Kanpur

Match 3: 19-22 September – India Blue v India Green at Kanpur

Final: 25-29 September – TBD v TBD at Lucknow

Mukund, Parthiv and Raina to lead the teams

Abhinav Mukund, who returned to the Indian Test squad after a 6-year gap, will lead the India Red team while Parthiv Patel and Suresh Raina take the duties of the India Green and India Blue squads. Parthiv played a couple of Tests in the previous home season in the absence of Wriddhiman Saha while Raina couldn’t make a cut into the Indian limited-overs side, has a good chance now to impress selectors. The squads include consistent performers in the domestic circuit and the youngsters who shone in the recent past.

Squad details:

India Red: Abhinav Mukund (C), Priyank Panchal, Sudip Chatterjee, Ishank Jaggi, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant (WK), Baba Indrajith, K Gowtham, Karn Sharma, Basil Thampi, Ashok Dinda, Rahul Singh, CV Milind.

India Green: Parthiv Patel (C & WK), Murali Vijay, R Samarth, P Chopra, Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair, Ankit Bawne, Shahbaz Nadeem, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Sidharth Kaul, Mayank Dagar, Nitin Saini, Aniket Choudhary.

India Blue: Suresh Raina (C), Samit Gohel, KS Bharat, AR Easwaran, Manoj Tiwary, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar, Ishan Kishan (WK), Jayant Yadav, Bhargav Bhatt, KM Gandhi, Ishant Sharma, Ankit Rajpoot, S Kamat, Jaydev Unadkat.