Delhi selectors name Virat Kohli in the preliminary squad for Ranji Trophy

The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) selectors have named a 40-man preliminary squad for the upcoming domestic season. Though most names featuring in the team are Delhi players who’ve done well at various levels, club as well as Under-19 cricket they have also included Indian skipper Virat Kohli in the team.

Along with Kohli, senior Delhi players Gautam Gambhir, Unmukt Chand, Nitish Rana and Pradeep Sangwan constitute the core of the team. Among other national players who find a spot are opener, Shikhar Dhawan, veteran pacer Ishant Sharma and young wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant. This is just a pre-season squad and thus no captain has been named.

Kohli and Dhawan will be on national duty and thus might not take the field for the team right through the season; there are indications that Ishant might fly to England and participate in the County Championship considering that the Indian team has tough overseas tours lined up.

Pant who was appointed as the skipper for the Vijay Hazare Trophy considering him to be the one for the future might also be picked in the national team at least for the Twenty20 Internationals and thus the selectors would want to keep all the options open before picking the final team. The Indian team is scheduled to play a total of 23 International games at home against Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka until December of which 20 are limited-overs encounters.

Earlier the DDCA’s Cricket Affairs Committee (CAC) had retained coach KP Bhaskar for the upcoming season despite his feud with a senior member of the team Gambhir. They had also appointed former Indian cricketer Manoj Prabhakar as the bowling coach of the team. In the last couple of seasons, the Delhi team hasn’t been able to put up a noteworthy performance in the domestic circuit and would want to change the fate.

Delhi Preliminary Squad for Ranji Trophy 2017-18:

Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma, Rishabh Pant (C/wk), Pradeep Sangwan, Unmukt Chand, Navdeep Saini, Milind Kumar, Dhruv Shorey, Jonty Sidhu, Manjyot Kalra, Mayank Rawat, Manan Sharma, Nitish Rana, Varun Sood, Vikas Tokas, Subodh Bhati, Pulkit Narang, Pawan Suyal, Sarthak Ranjan, Kulwant, Himmat Singh, Kshitij Sharma, Aditya Kaushik, Akash Sudan, Shelly Shaurya, Harsh Tyagi, Tejas Baroka, Arjun Gupta (wk), Dinesh Mor (wk),  Anuj Rawat (wk), Rajesh Sharma, Gaurav Kumar, Vikas Mishra, Simrajeet Singh, Vishwas Malik, Kunal Chandela, Sahil Malhotra, Sarang Rawat.