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Ravichandran Ashwin and Suresh Raina has been named in squads for the Deodhar Trophy beginning on 23rd October with a slight tweak in the format.
The tournament remains a three-team affair but it will not feature Vijay Hazare Trophy champions this time. Instead, India A, India B and India C, captained by Dinesh Karthik, Shreyas Iyer and Ajinkya Rahane respectively, will compete for the title. With the World Cup just over seven months away, the trio will be looking to pile on consistent scores of note to present the selectors with some headaches, with the Indian middle-order, which just about pulled off a chase in the Asia Cup final last month, still looking wobbly.
Ravichandran Ashwin, who has not played an ODI since the tour of the West Indies in July 2017, will be looking to make a comeback into the ODI side and keep his World Cup dream alive as he finds himself part of India A.
Also Suresh Raina, who fell out of favour with the selectors after a torrid tour of England and was dropped for the subsequent Asia Cup last month, is unlikely to get a better opportunity to prove his ODI credentials and warrant a selection for the 2019 World Cup. The left-hander was a vital cog in the knockout stages of India’s victorious 2011 World Cup campaign.
Other players competing to break into the side include Siddarth Kaul and Jaydev Unadkat. Prithvi Shaw, who recently dazzled in his debut Test series against Windies would want to make a statement too, along with Shubman Gill, his partner-in-crime in the U-19 World Cup earlier this year.
Squads for Deodhar Trophy:
India A:
Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Prithvi Shaw, Anmolpreet Singh, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ankit Bawne, Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Krunal Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shreyas Gopal, Shams Mulani, Mohammed Siraj, Dhawal Kulkarni, Siddarth Kaul.
India B:
Shreyas Iyer (c), Mayank Agarwal, Rituraj Gaekwad, Prashant Chopra, Hanuma Vihari, Manoj Tiwary, Ankush Bains (wk), Rohit Rayudu, K Gowtham, Mayank Markande, S Nadeem, Deepak Chahar, Varun Aaron, Jaydev Unadkat.
India C:
Ajinkya Rahane (c), Abhinav Mukund, Shubman Gill, Ravikumar Samarth, Suresh Raina, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (wk), Vijay Shankar, Washington Sundar, Rahul Chahar, Papu Roy, Navdeep Saini, Rajneesh Gurbani, Umar Nazir.
