Suryakumar Yadav has been sidelined from the opening round of the 2024-25 Duleep Trophy to recover from a hand injury he sustained during a recent pre-season match for Mumbai at the Buchi Babu Invitational Tournament in Coimbatore. Advised to rest, Suryakumar is currently undergoing a routine assessment at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
The injury occurred while fielding on the third day of the match against TNCA XI, and as a precaution, Suryakumar did not bat in the second innings. The Mumbai team management had confirmed that the decision was made to safeguard his participation in the season-opening Duleep Trophy.
Suryakumar, who leads India’s T20I side, has been eager to push for a Test comeback. Having not played first-class cricket in over a year, he participated in the Buchi Babu Tournament to prepare for red-ball cricket, especially with India scheduled to play 10 Tests over the next five months, beginning with a two-match series against Bangladesh starting September 19 in Chennai. Suryakumar, whose sole Test appearance was last year against Australia, was initially named in the India C squad, captained by Ruturaj Gaikwad, which is set to face Shreyas Iyer's India D in Anantapur. Meanwhile, India A and India B will play the other opening-round match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
In recent developments, fast bowlers Mohammed Siraj and Umran Malik have also been ruled out of the first round of the Duleep Trophy due to illness, and Ravindra Jadeja has been withdrawn from the tournament, though the BCCI has not provided a reason for his absence. Navdeep Saini and Gaurav Yadav have been named as replacements for Siraj and Malik in the India B and C squads, respectively.
On a positive note, Nitish Kumar Reddy has been declared fit by the NCA after recovering from a groyne injury that had earlier led to his withdrawal from India's T20I squad for the Zimbabwe tour in July.
Revised Squads for Duleep Trophy First Round:
India A: Shubman Gill (capt), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (wk), KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.
India B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (wk), Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (wk).
India C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (wk), B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Gaurav Yadav, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (wk), Sandeep Warrier.
India D: Shreyas Iyer (capt), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (wk), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (wk), Saurabh Kumar.