Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25: Prasidh, Abhimanyu, Padikkal available for knockouts

Prasidh Krishna, Devdutt Padikkal, and Abhimanyu Easwaran will be available for the knockout round of the 2024-25 edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. KL Rahul has been granted the break following his request for the same after the Border-Gavaskar Trophy while Washington Sundar could be available for the semi-final, provided Tamil Nadu reach till there. 

Prasidh, Padikkal, and Easwaran were all part of India's squad in the recently-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy. While the two players from Karnataka will fly out on Wednesday with the majority of the Indian team, Easwaran was permitted to depart a day prior as he was booked on an earlier flight by the Cricket Association of Bengal. 

Easwaran will train with the rest of the Bengal squad ahead of their pre-quarter-final game against Haryana. The other player representing Bengal in the Indian squad, Akash Deep, has been ruled out due to a back niggle. He will be heading to the Centre of Excellence (earlier the National Cricket Academy) in Bengaluru for further treatment. 

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Both Padikkal and Prasidh are expected to join the Karnataka squad on January 10, 2025. The duo has made only one appearance each in the series against Australia. Padikkal played the series opener in Perth and managed scores of 0 and 25 while Prasidh got a chance in the final game of the series at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where he picked six wickets across the two innings.

As for Easwaran, the pre-quarter-final against Haryana will be his first official fixture in two months. This comes after he spent all the five Tests in Australia on the bench. A subpar run for India A in the build-up to the series Down Under diminished his chances of earning a Test debut even though he had been in scintillating form with the willow prior to landing in Australia, racking up four consecutive First-Class centuries in matches across the Duleep Trophy and the Ranji Trophy.