Duleep Trophy 2025-26: Full Squads, Schedule, and Key Players to watch out for. Zone-wise complete list of players.
India’s 2025-26 domestic season will kick off in the form of the prestigious Duleep Trophy tournament. The six-team will commence on 28 August in Bengaluru with North Zone taking on East Zone and Central Zone facing North East Zone in the first & second Quarterfinal fixture respectively.
India’s stand by wicket-keeper for Tests, Dhruv Jurel leads the Central Zone team which also has several international players like Rajat Patidar, Kuldeep Yadav and seamers Khaleel Ahmed & Deepak Chahar. Likewise, the East Zone team led by another Test hopeful Ishan Kishan has veteran pacers, Mohammed Shami & Mukesh Kumar.
India’s Test skipper, Shubman Gill will lead the North Zone for the first time in his career. The team has some upcoming pacers who are in Test team radar, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Anshul Kamboj.
Shardul Thakur will lead a strong West Zone team, boasting a potent middle order and South Zone will be led by India’s T20 star Tilak Varma.
Players to watch out for in Duleep Trophy 2025-26
Shreyas Iyer: The middle-order batter has had a fantastic last couple of seasons, be it international cricket, domestic cricket or IPL. In the 2024/25 season, Iyer made 480 runs in seven Ranji Trophy innings and was prolific in both white ball formats (345 in 8 innings at SR of 188.52 in SMAT and 325 in 5 VHT innings).
He had a stellar IPL both as a skipper and a batter. Leading his sides to consecutive finals, Iyer made 955 runs across both those seasons. Hence it was surprising that Shreyas Iyer couldn’t find a place in India’s Test tour to England. Not just because of the numbers but given, the inexperience of India’s Test batting.
The tour went well for India on the whole, but there are a couple of aspects they would like to address and that is their middle-order. They tried Karun Nair, owing to his sensational returns in domestic cricket, but he failed to grab his chances.
Now Shreyas Iyer has the opportunity to stake a claim in India’s middle-order and that’s why this Duleep Trophy is important for him. With a long home season coming, Iyer being amongst the runs will be a big plus for India, specially for his prowess against the spinners.
Read More: Top candidates to assume the No. 6 spot for India in Tests
Sarfaraz Khan: Another player who would feel hard done by the selection or rather non selection is Sarfaraz Khan. The Mumbai batter had a great beginning to his Test career scoring a couple of fifties in the home series against England and followed up with a sensational 150 against New Zealand, albeit in a losing cause.
A couple of failures in between and he didn’t feature in any of the matches in the Australia tour and was dropped from the squad altogether for England. Much like Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz needs a strong show in Duleep Trophy to get back in contention.
The 27-year old batter, now sporting a leaner physique and much better fitness, averages a whopping 65.98 in first class after playing 83 innings. A player of such caliber shouldn’t be missed by India, especially when being at the peak of his powers.
Ruturaj Gaikwad: While the above mentioned players are middle-order contenders, there is also a No.3 conundrum that India is facing. They tried both Sai Sudarshan and Karun Nair at that position, but the results weren’t as fruitful.
It will be safe that India haven’t found a successor to Cheteshwar Pujara and the wait still goes on. Hence this Duleep Trophy could be crucial for someone like Ruturaj Gaikwad.
The CSK skipper, predominantly top-order batter, should use this red-ball tournament to boost his chances of knocking on the doors of Test cricket. While his Ranji Trophy average of 45.47 in 27 games and overall FC average of 41.77 isn’t earth shattering, Gaikwad has shown his class time & time again at different levels.
Read More: Where are the fast bowling all-rounders in India?
Ishan Kishan: The wicket-keeper batter hasn’t donned India colors in close to two years and has been largely out of favor in any of the formats.
Dhruv Jurel has pipped him for the role of a back-up wicket-keeper to Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul has been preferred while it comes to the ODI format. However things could change for Kishan if he does well in the Duleep Trophy where he will lead the East Zone.
It is already looking good for the left-hander,especially given that he is back in the national contract and the fact selectors looked at him as a replacement for the injured Rishabh Pant.
So a stellar Duleep Trophy would mean, Ishan Kishan could very well find a place in the India Test squad in the near future.
Rajat Patidar: The IPL title winning skipper for RCB, Rajat Patidar has been a stand out performer in domestic circuit in recent times. However, he hasn’t been able to replicate the same in Test cricket and has not played for India since the 2024 home series against England.
Had the right-hander grabbed his chances with a good show in that debut series, he could have been permanent in the India Test squad, given the retirement of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. But a poor return meant in the series (63 runs in six innings), Patidar has gone down the pecking order.
With India looking to lock their Test batting order, Patidar would be eyeing a way back into the team with a solid performance in domestic cricket, starting with Duleep Trophy.
Read More: KL Rahul & Yashasvi Jaiswal might have filled the opening spot jigsaw, but who are the best reserves
Mohammed Shami: In a comeback trial from an injury, Mohammed Shami couldn’t prove his fitness to be included in India’s red-ball squad. Eventually he was left out of both Australia and England tours despite featuring in limited overs formats for India.
One of the reasons said was he isn’t match ready for red-ball cricket. Form wise, Shami had a forgettable IPL 2025, picking just six wickets in 9 outings at an expensive ER of 11.23. So for him to be selected in India’s Test squad, Shami needs to have a good Duleep Trophy and needs to be in the pink of his fitness.
This tournament comes at a time when India is searching for the third pacer and him being in good form will be great news for the Test team.
Central Zone Squad: Dhruv Jurel (c), Rajat Patidar (vc, subject to fitness clearance), Arjan Juyal (wk), Danish Malewar, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Manav Suthar, Shubham Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar, Kuldeep Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Sanjeet Desai, Saransh Jain, Aayush Pandey.
Standby: Upendra Yadav (wk), Madhav Kaushik, Yash Thakur, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Mahipal Lomror, Kuldeep Sen.
East Zone Squad:Ishan Kishan (c & wk), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vc), Kumar Kushagra (wk), Riyan Parag, Virat Singh, Sridam Paul, Utkarsh Singh, Mohammed Shami, Akash Deep, Mukesh Kumar, Denish Das, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Manishi, Sandeep Pattnaik, Sharandeep Singh.
Standby: Sudip Kumar Gharami, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Mukhtar Hussain, Aasirwad Swain, Swastik Samal, Rahul Singh.
North Zone Squad: Shubman Gill (c), Ankit Kumar (vc), Kanhaiya Wadhwan (wk), Ayush Badoni, Yash Dhull, Shubham Khajuria, Nishant Sidhu, Arshdeep Singh, Mayank Dagar, Harshit Rana, Anshul Kamboj, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Auqib Nabi, Ankit Kalsi, Sahil Lotra.
Standby: Shubham Arora, Nishunk Birla, Jaskaranvir Singh Paul, Ravi Chauhan, Abid Mushtaq, Umar Nazir, Divesh Sharma.
South Zone Squad: Tilak Varma (c), Mohammed Azharuddeen (vc & wk), Narayan Jagadeesan (wk),
Tanmay Agarwal, Ricky Bhui, Snehal Kauthankar, Devdutt Padikkal, Salman Nizar, N Basil, Gurjapneet Singh, MD Nidheesh, R Sai Kishore, T Thyagarajan, T Vijay, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Mohit Kale.
Standby: Mohit Redkar, R Smaran, Ankit Sharma, Eden Apple Tom, Andre Siddarth, Shaikh Rasheed.
West Zone Squad: Shardul Thakur (c), Saurabh Nawale (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Harvik Desai (wk), Aarya Desai, Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jaymeet Patel, Manan Hingrajia, Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Arzan Nagwaswala.
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