India Red to face India Green in Duleep Trophy opener

Abhinav Mukund-led India Red will take on Parthiv Patel's India Green in the opening match of the Duleep Trophy, starting September 7 in Lucknow. The tournament will be played with pink ball and under lights.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday reinstated the prestigious tournament in the 2017-18 domestic calendar reportedly after the intervention of Sourav Ganguly, the technical committee chairman. The tournament was removed from the domestic calendar earlier this month.

The second match between India Red and Suresh Raina-led India Blue will be played from September 13-16 followed by the third match from September 19-22 will be played between India Blue and India Green, at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur.

The final will be hosted at the newly-constructed stadium in Lucknow from September 25-29.

Squads:

India Red: Abhinav Mukund (Captain), Priyank Panchal, Sudip Chatterjee, Ishank Jaggi, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant (WK), Baba Indrajith, K. Gowtham, Karn Sharma, Basil Thampi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ashok Dinda, Rahul Singh, Chama Milind.

India Green: Murali Vijay, R. Samarth, P. Chopra, Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair, Ankit Bawne, Parthiv Patel (Captain & WK), Shahbaz Nadeem, Parvez Rasool, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Sidharth Kaul, Mayank Dagar, Nitin Saini, Aniket Choudhary.

India Blue: Suresh Raina (Captain), Samit Gohel, K.S. Bharat, A.R. Easwaran, Manoj Tiwary, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar, Ishan Kishan (WK), Jayant Yadav, Bharghav Bhatt, K.M. Gandhi, Ishant Sharma, Ankit Rajpoot, S. Kamat, Jaydev Unadkat.

--IANS

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