New Delhi, Aug 7 (IANS) India wicket-keeper Dhruv Jurel has been named as the captain of the Central Zone team for the upcoming Duleep Trophy, starting on August 28 in Bengaluru. Apart from him, Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar and Khaleel Ahmed are the other India players included in the 15-member squad.

India batter Rajat Patidar, who captained Royal Challengers Bengaluru to IPL 2025 trophy, has been named the vice-captain. But his availability is subject to fitness clearance by the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE). It is to be noted that Patidar had been dealing with a finger injury sustained during fielding in IPL 2025.

Jurel, meanwhile, was recently a part of India’s 2-2 drawn Test series against England, and played the last Test at The Oval, which the visitors’ won by six runs. Jurel had also been the substitute keeper for India when Rishabh Pant couldn’t take up keeping duties due to finger injury and later foot fracture at Lord’s and Manchester respectively.

Khaleel, on the other hand, is coming off a county stint with Essex, which was cut short to just two County Championship appearances due to personal reasons. Kuldeep, meanwhile, didn’t get a game to play in the Test tour of England, while Chahar was seen bowling at Indian team’s practice sessions ahead of the third game at Lord’s.

Ranji Trophy defending champions Vidarbha have sizeable representation in Danish Malewar, Aditya Thakare, Yash Rathod and Harsh Dubey, who was in India ‘A’ team for the matches against England Lions. Usman Ghani, the Vidarbha head coach in their recent Ranji Trophy triumph, will be the Central Zone team’s head coach.

The Duleep Trophy will be held in the old zonal format of six teams and marks the beginning of 2025/26 domestic cricket season. Central Zone will begin their campaign with a quarter-final clash against North East Zone at the BCCI Centre of Excellence Ground, with the game’s winner set to meet Shardul Thakur-led West Zone in the semi-final.

Central Zone squad: Dhruv Jurel (captain), Rajat Patidar (vice-captain, subject to availability), Aryan Juyal, Danish Malewar, Sanchit Desai, Kuldeep Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Deepak Chahar, Saransh Jain, Ayush Pandey, Shubham Sharma, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Manav Suthar, Khaleel Ahmed

Stand-bys: Madhav Kaushik, Yash Thakur, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Mahipal Lomror, Kuldeep Sen, and Upendra Yadav.

–IANS

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