Duleep Trophy: Rishabh Pant in focus on red-ball return; selectors eye backup options

Rishabh Pant’s red-ball return will be closely monitored but the national selectors will also trace suitable backup options to frontline stars when Duleep Trophy, which preludes an important Test season, begins across Bengaluru and Anantapur on Thursday.

Pant, who returned to white-ball formats after that horrific car crash, is yet to play in a longer-duration match. His last red-ball outing was against Bangladesh in December 2022.

Now, he will turn out for Abhimanyu Easwaran-led Team B against Shubman Gill-captained Team A at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Satisfying his outings in the shorter versions were, but this four-day tournament offers him a unique challenge – batting and ‘keeping for an undefined number of overs.

Pant is the designated stumper in Team B, and it is evident that the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel is intending to take a deep look into his role as the wicketkeeper-batter in a season that will culminate with the World Test Championship Final at the Lord’s next June.

But that is just one piece of the puzzle as other worthy contenders are there for the wicketkeeper-batter’s slot.

The front-runner is Dhruv Jurel (Team A), who was impressive in his debut series against England earlier this year.

Then there’s Ishan Kishan, who will play for Team D which is marshalled by Shreyas Iyer at Anantapur.

Kishan, though a long shot, will be eager to use Duleep Trophy as a platform to stake his claim for an India return after an unsavoury train of incidents saw him losing the BCCI central contract in the current cycle.

The return of veterans Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for the Bangladesh series will gobble up two batting slots along with Gill at No. 3.

Hence, there will be a jostle between KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan, who impressed all with an excellent Test debut against England, for settling into the available middle-order space.

It's imperative for Rahul, who is in Team A as a pure batter, and Shreyas to come good in Duleep Trophy as they missed a large chunk of the home matches against England – the former with an injury and the latter was dropped after the second Test at Visakhapatnam.

Bowling back-up 

India have been well-served by the troika of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami in Tests for a while now, but it’s unwise to enter a long Test season without sufficient alternates.

More so because Siraj will miss the first round of Duleep Trophy with an illness and Shami, whose last competitive outing was the 2023 50-over World Cup final, is still recuperating after a surgery.

The selectors will keep a close eye on Bengal duo of Mukesh Kumar and Akash Deep, both of whom had bright initiations into traditional format, along with Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan, Khaleel Ahmed, Vidwath Kaverappa, Vysakh Vijayakumar and Harshit Rana.

While the pace department needs some urgent solutions, the spin has a slightly different landscape.

Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, who was released from Team B, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel form a formidable Indian spin unit.

While there is no pressing demand for the support cast, the selectors would like to be ready with instant supply in case of an eventuality.

In that context, spinners such as Washington Sundar, also a capable batter, R Sai Kishore, top wicket-taker in the previous Ranji season with 53 scalps, Manav Suthar and Saurabh Kumar will be hoping to be in the range of the five wisemen’s radar.

Dark horses  

There is a litany of fringe players who would want to give a further fillip to their career after showcasing talent at various levels.

Karnataka’s Devdutt Padikkal had a roaring Ranji season in 2023-24, which earned him a Test debut against England at Dharamsala.

Baba Indrajith of Tamil Nadu is a consistent domestic performer and he once again underlined his prowess making 767 runs in the last Ranji season, and Musheer Khan, younger brother of Sarfaraz, smoothly graduated to First-Class cricket for Mumbai after blazing the Under-19 circuit.

B Sai Sudharsan of Tamil Nadu, who made white ball debut for India, too has given an early indication of his readiness for red-ball cricket with a hundred for Surrey in English county cricket. He will play for Team C under Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Squads: India A: Shubman Gill (C), 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 (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy (subject to fitness), Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).

India C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Gaurav Yadav, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.

India D: Shreyas lyer (C), 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.

Matches start at 9.30 AM.