Rahul, Pant, Gill rested from Duleep Trophy; Rinku to feature in round two

While Nishant Sandhu comes in as a replacement for Axar in India D squad, Tushar Deshpande ruled out of game due to a niggle and his place will be taken by India A's Vidwath Kaverappa

Anantapur: Majority of the players picked in the India squad for the first Test against Bangladesh, including Rishabh Pant, K L Rahul and Shubman Gill, were on Tuesday rested for the second round of Duleep Trophy beginning here on September 12.

The others picked in the national squad on Sunday include Akash Deep, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel, who all have been exempted from the second round.

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Left-arm pacer Yash Dayal and Sarfaraz Khan, who too are part of India’s 16-man squad for the opening Test, have not been released from their Duleep Trophy duties indicating they won’t be part of the playing eleven against Bangladesh in the game to be played in Chennai.

“The selectors have named Pratham Singh (Railways) as a replacement for Gill, Akshay Wadkar (Vidarbha CA) as a replacement for KL Rahul and SK Rasheed (Andhra CA) as a replacement for Jurel,” said the BCCI in a statement.

“Left-arm spinner Shams Mulani will replace Kuldeep in the squad whereas Aaqib Khan (UPCA) will replace Akashdeep in the squad.” Mayank Agarwal has been named as India A captain in Gill’s place. As Jaiswal and Pant’s replacements, the selectors have named Suyash Prabhudessai and Rinku Singh.

Nishant Sandhu comes in as a replacement for Axar in the India D squad. Pacer Tushar Deshpande has been ruled out of the game due to a niggle and his place will be taken by India A’s Vidwath Kaverappa. No changes have been made to the India C squad led by Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Pant, returning to red ball cricket for the first time since December 2022, gave a good account himself in the Duleep Trophy opener and so did K L Rahaul and Akash Deep.

Updated India A squad: Mayank Agarwal (C), Riyan Parag, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat, Pratham Singh, Akshay Wadkar, SK Rasheed, Shams Mulani, Aaqib Khan.

Updated India B squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Sarfaraz Khan, Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK), Suyash Prabhudessai, Rinku Singh, Himanshu Mantri (WK).

Updated India D squad: Shreyas lyer (C), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (WK), Saurabh Kumar, Sanju Samson (WK), Nishant Sindhu, Vidwath Kaverappa.