Central Zone to take on East Zone in Duleep Trophy opener

Central Zone will take on East Zone while North Zone will play North East Zone on the opening day of Duleep Trophy beginning in Bengaluru from June 28.

The match between Central Zone and East Zone will be played at the Alur Cricket Stadium, while the game between North Zone and North East Zone — the sixth and latest entrant in the domestic first-class tournament — will take place at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

The two games will effectively serve as quarterfinals. Last season’s Duleep Trophy winners West Zone and runners-up South have been given direct entry into the semifinals. The final will be played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on July 12.

The squads: West Zone: Priyank Panchal (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Harvik Desai (wicketkeeper), Prithvi Shaw, Het Patel (wicketkeeper), Sarfaraz Khan, Arpit Vasavada, Atit Seth, Shams Mulani, Yuvraj Dodiya, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Chetan Sakariya, Chintan Gaja, Arzan Nagwaswalla.

South Zone: Hanuma Vihari (captain), Mayank Agarwal (vice-captain), Sai Sudharsan, Ricky Bhui (wicketkeeper), KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), R Samarth, Washington Sundar, Sachin Baby, Pradosh Ranjan Paul, Sai Kishore, V Kaverappa, V Vyshak, KV Sasikanth, Darshan Misal, Tilak Varma.

East Zone: Abhimanyu Easwaran (captain), Shahbaz Nadeem (vice-captain), Santanu Mishra, Sudip Gharami, Riyan Parag, A. Majumdar, Bipin Saurabh, A Porel (wicketkeeper), K Kushagra (wicketkeeper), Shahbaz Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Anukul Roy, M Mura Singh, Ishan Porel.

North Zone: Mandeep Singh (captain), Prashant Chopra, Dhruv Shorey, Manan Vohra, Prabhsimran Singh (wicketkeeper), Ankit Kumar, AS Kalsi, Harshit Rana, Abid Mushtaq, Jayant Yadav, Pulkit Narang, Nishant Sandhu, Sidharth Kaul, Vaibhav Arora, Baltej Singh.

Central Zone: Shivam Mavi (captain), Upendra Yadav (vice-captain and wicketkeeper), Vivek Singh, Himanshu Mantri, Kunal Chandela, Shubham Sharma, Amandeep Khare, Rinku Singh, Akshay Wadkar, Dhruv Jurel, Saurabh Kumar, Manav Sathar, Saransh Jain, Avesh Khan, Yash Thakur.

North-East Zone: Rongsen Jonathan (captain), Nilesh Lamichaney (vice-captain), Kishan Lyngdoh, Langlonyamba, A.R. Ahlawat, Joseph Lalthankhuma, Prafullamani (wicketkeeper), Dippu Sangma, Jotin Pheiroijam, Imliwati Lemtur, Palzor Tamang, Kishan Sinha, Akash Kumar Choudhary, Rajkumar Rex Singh, Nagaho Chishi. Reserves: Lee Yong Lepcha, Nabam Abo, Dika Ralte.