The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) new domestic season is all set to kick off starting August 28 with the Duleep Trophy, which returns to the zonal format this year.
The last time Duleep Trophy was played in the zonal format was during the 2023-24 season.
This season the tournament will feature six teams — North, South, West, East, Central and NorthEast — and will be played at the new Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.
The First-Class tournament will feature India Test captain Shubman Gill along with Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh and Abhimanyu Easwaran — all part of the recently concluded Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
In addition, players gunning for a return into the mix like Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan, and Mohammed Shami will also be in action.
Format
Last season, the Duleep Trophy was a round-robin tournament. However, the return to the zonal format marks the comeback of the knockouts. The finalists of the previous zonal edition (2023) — South Zone and West Zone — will directly play the semifinals.
The other four teams, Central, East, North and NorthEast, will play the quarterfinal round.
Schedule
Quarterfinal 1: August 28-31, 2025: North Zone vs East Zone
Quarterfinal 2: August 28-31, 2025: Central Zone vs NorthEast Zone
Semifinal 1: September 4-7, 2025: South Zone vs Winner QF1
Semifinal 2: September 4-7, 2025: North Zone vs Winner QF2
Final: September 11-15, 2025: Winner SF 1 vs Winner SF 2
Squads
South Zone: Tilak Varma (c), Mohammed Azharuddeen (vc), Tanmay Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Mohit Kale, Salman Nizar, Narayan Jagadeesan, Tripurana Vijay, R Sai Kishore, Tanay Thyagarajan, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Nidheesh MD, Ricky Bhui, Basil NP, Gurjapneet Singh, Snehal Kauthankar. (Standbys: Mohit Redkar, R Smaran, Ankit Sharma, Edhen Apple Tom, Andre Siddarth, Shaikh Rasheed)
East Zone: Ishan Kishan (c), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vc), Sandeep Patnaik, Virat Singh, Denish Das, Sridam Paul, Sharandeep Singh, Kumar Kushagra, Riyan Parag, Utkarsh Singh, Manishi, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Mohammed Shami. (Standbys: Mukhtar Hussain, Aasirwad Swain, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Swastik Samal, Sudip Kr Gharami, Rahul Singh)
West Zone squad: Shardul Thakur (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Aarya Desai, Harvik Desai (wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jaymeet Patel, Manan Hingrajia, Saurabh Nawale (wicket-keeper), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Dharmandrasinh Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Arzan Nagwaswala. (Standbys: Mahesh Pithiya, Shivalik Shama, Mukesh Choudhary, Siddharath Desai, Chintan Gaja, Urvil Patel, Musheer Khan)
North Zone squad: Shubman Gill (c), Shubham Khajuria, Ankit Kumar (vc), Ayush Badoni, Yash Dhull, Ankit Kalsi, Nishant Sandhu, Sahil Lotra, Mayank Dagar, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Anshul Kamboj, Auqib Nabi, Kanhaiya Wadhawan. (Standbys: Shubham Arora (wk), Jaskaranvir Singh Paul, Ravi Chauhan, Abid Mushtaq, Nishunk Birla, Umar Nazir, Divesh Sharma)
Central Zone squad: Dhruv Jurel (c/wk), Rajat Patidar, Aryan Juyal, Danish Malewar, Sanjeet Desai, Kuldeep Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Deepak Chahar, Saransh Jain, Ayush Pandey, Shubham Sharma, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Manav Suthar, Khaleel Ahmed. (Standbys: Madhav Kaushik, Yash Thakur, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Mahipal Lomror, Kuldeep Sen, Upendra Yadav)
NorthEast Zone: Yet to be announced
