Advantage South Zone as Central Zone forced to make 4 changes to Duleep Trophy Final squad

The Duleep Trophy final will be played from September 11 to 15 between South Zone and Central Zone.

In about a couple of days’ time, the all-important Duleep Trophy final will be played between the Central Zone and South Zone at the BCCI Centre of Excellence Ground 1. However, due to India A’s important two-match red-ball series against Australia A at home, both sides have been dealt with forced changes to their Duleep Trophy final squads.

Forced changes for Central Zone

After South Zone lost N. Jagadeesan and Devdutt Padikkal, Central Zone have named four changes. The Rajat Patidar-led side beat a star-studded West Zone unit in the semi-final. Three players who played an integral part in the historic win will no longer take part in the tournament. Those players are Harsh Dubey, Khaleel Ahmed and Yash Thakur. Also, Manav Suthar will also be replaced since all these four players are part of India A’s squad for the two-match series that starts September 16.

While Harsh Dubey has been replaced by Kumar Kartikeya, Nachiket Bhute has come in for Yash Thakur, while Kuldeep Sen will replace Khaleel. Also, Rajasthan spinner Ajay Singh Kukna is in for Manav Suthar. While all four are quality replacements, Central Zone will dearly miss especially someone like Dubey, who was having a superb Duleep Trophy. In the two games, he picked up 10 wickets and also made a superb 75-run knock in the semi-final.

Updated Central Zone squad for Duleep Trophy final

Rajat Patidar (c), Ayush Pandey, Danish Malewar, Shubham Sharma, Sanchit Desai, Yash Rathod, Nachiket Bhute, Kumar Kartikeya Singh, Aditya Thakare, Upendra Yadav (wk), Ajay Singh Kukna, Akshay Wadkar (wk), Deepak Chahar, Kuldeep Sen, Saransh Jain.

India A squad for Australia A games

Shreyas Iyer (C), Abhimanyu Easwaran, N Jagadeesan (WK), Sai Sudharsan, Dhruv Jurel (VC & WK), Devdutt Padikkal, Harsh Dubey, Ayush Badoni, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Tanush Kotian, Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Khaleel Ahmed, Manav Suthar, Yash Thakur