The latest edition of the Duleep Trophy has concluded with India A beating India C by 132 runs to secure their second title. The tournament witnessed some fine performances from youngsters and established stars alike.
Rinku Singh picked for second round as top stars leave for Test series against Bangladesh. Mayank Agarwal has been named as India A captain in Gill's place.
While the pace department needs some urgent solutions, the spin has a slightly different landscape.
Riyan Parag and Shaswat Rawat struck fluent half-centuries to help India A tighten their grip over India C on the penultimate day of the four-day Duleep Trophy final round match in Anantapur on Saturday.
Musheer Khan, younger brother of Sarfaraz Khan (9), saved his side from a total collapse with an innings of rare maturity that belied his 19 tender years.
Tilak Varma and Pratham smashed centuries as India A dominated the third day of their Duleep Trophy match against India D.
However, Rana can take a slice of comfort as he completed a four-wicket haul in the opening session of the day to bowl out India A for 290 in their first dig.
Azharuddeen was the vice-captain of the side, and now that role has been handed to Tamil Nadu's N Jagadeesan.
'The captain had a lot of faith in me, and I fulfilled my role very well.'
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Haryana all-rounder Jayant Yadav will lead North Zone in the upcoming Duleep Trophy after senior batter Mandeep Singh was ruled out of the tournament owing to an injury.
Kerala will have a new captain in Mohammed Azharuddeen.
India B captain Abhimanyu Easwaran single-handedly kept his team in the hunt with a defiant century against India C, in the Duleep Trophy.
In the absence of national regulars, the focus will shift on the likes of Rinku, who was surprisingly not picked for the first round despite having an impressive first-class record.
India Test skipper and T20 vice-captain Shubman Gill reached the BCCI's Centre of Excellence (CoE) for fitness assessment ahead of travelling to Dubai for the upcoming Asia Cup.
Venkatesh Prasad described the meeting with the two leaders as "extremely positive", saying the aim is to bring back international cricket and IPL to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
The uber-talented Sanju Samson completed his 11th first-class hundred before Arshdeep Singh showed his wares with the semi-new ball as India D held sway over India B on the second day of their final Duleep Trophy round robin league match in Anantapur on Friday.
South Zone applied finishing touches to their superiority across the last four days, defeating West Zone by 75 runs to win the Duleep Trophy.
'Players who are playing First-Class cricket throughout the year, they would have had 14 First-Class games potentially with India A games, the Irani Trophy, the Duleep Trophy or even more. So a bit of break in between, switching in the formats is always good.'
Indian cricketers, including Test skipper Shubman Gill and ODI captain Rohit Sharma, have cleared the pre-season fitness test which was conducted at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on Sunday.
This year, Rajat led RCB to their maiden IPL title in 18 years and recently was crucial to the Central Zone's Duleep Trophy triumph for the first time since 2014-15.
The victory took India A to the top of the points table with a total of 12 points from three matches, crowing them as the eventual winners.
The likes of Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, Riyan Parag and Rinku Singh will get another opportunity to enhance their red-ball credentials when the final round of Duleep Trophy matches begin in Anantapur
'It would have been understandable if, after a gruelling tour where five Test matches were crammed into a little over six weeks, he had opted to rest.''
Easwaran has been a domestic cricket stalwart for Bengal, with 107 first-class games, 8,070 runs at an average of 48.32 with the help of 27 centuries and 33 fifties.
West Zone will boast of a power-packed batting line-up in Cheteshwar Pujara, Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav and Sarfaraz Khan for the Duleep Trophy semi-final against Central Zone.
International Shardul Thakur will lead Mumbai in the 2025-26 edition of Ranji Trophy, the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) announced while unveiling the list of probables for the prestigious tournament.
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At 29, when most fast bowlers are either established or quietly drifting out of the spotlight, Auqib Nabi Dar has finally arrived through patience, persistence and a refusal to let geography decide his fate.
Rinku smashed a career-best 176 runs from 247 balls, his 100 coming off 157 balls against Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
Manav Suthar grabbed seven wickets to engineer India D's batting collapse and fashion a four-wicket win for India C in the Duleep Trophy in Anantapur on Saturday.
Captain Shreyas Iyer and Devdutt Padikkal struck half-centuries to help India D stretch their lead against India C on the second day of their Duleep Trophy match.
Earlier, India B were all out for 282 in their first innings in reply to D's first essay of 349.
The pace trio of Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar and Navdeep Saini did the damage with the ball as India B outclassed India A by 76 runs in the Duleep Trophy.
Shreyas Iyer, aiming to make a comeback to India's Test squad, fell for a second successive duck in the ongoing tournament.
North bowlers made optimum use of it to reduce North East to 58 for 3 at close. NE trail by 607 runs.
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The West Zone squad was selected by the selection committee chaired by Mumbai's Sanjay Patil, Baroda's Prayan Dave, Maharashtra's Akshay Darekar, Sandip Maniyar from Saurashtra Cricket Association and Kirat Damani from the Gujarat Cricket Association.
The Indian men ruled white-ball cricket, while South Africa ended decades of hurt by winning the World Test Championship at Lord's. Royal Challengers Bengaluru finally lifted their maiden IPL title, though the celebrations were dimmed by a deadly stampede. Above all, it was India's women who won a billion hearts by finally adding an ICC World Cup trophy to the cabinet.
Yash Rathod has the sixth-highest first-class average for any Indian batter with at least 2000 runs, going past Vijay Hazare (58.38) and Vinod Kambli (59.67).
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