Talented quartet of Rahul, Pant, Suryakumar, and Gill to showcase their skills in Duleep Trophy

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, and Jasprit Bumrah have unfortunately been ruled out of India's season-opening Duleep Trophy scheduled to begin on September 5. The selection panel, headed by Ajit Agarkar, will announce the teams for the competition later this month. Despite the absence of these star players, the tournament is expected to feature other centrally-contracted players representing the four participating teams.

Among those who will be keenly watched are KL Rahul, who missed four of the five England Tests earlier this year due to injury and Rishabh Pant, who could be featuring in his first red-ball game since returning to full fitness following a car accident in December 2022. Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Suryakumar Yadav and Rajat Patidar are some of the others specialist batters likely to be picked across the four teams.

There is also a possibility that Mohammed Shami, who is nearing full fitness, will be asked to feature in one of the matches to prove match fitness. Shami is currently in his last stages of rehab at the NCA in Bengaluru and has slowly eased himself into considerable bowling workloads over the past week.

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With India set to play 10 Tests over the next five months - five at home and five in Australia - the senior players will be given an extended break leading into the first of those assignments, the two-Test series against Bangladesh, starting in Chennai on September 19.

One of the two Duleep Trophy games that will be held simultaneously from September 5 is likely to be moved from Anantapur to Bengaluru owing to logistical considerations. The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has been sounded out informally to be available to host the fixture.

The move to have several contracted players feature in the competition is in line with the BCCI's push towards ensuring domestic cricket is prioritised. In February, secretary Jay Shah had sent out a letter that prioritising IPL over domestic cricket would lead to "severe implications", which had later led to Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan losing their central contracts after they missed some of the Ranji Trophy games just before the IPL.

Originally a zonal competition picked by a convener from each of the six zones (North, South, East, West, Central and North-East), the format of the Duleep Trophy was tweaked prior to this season, upon the recommendation of a BCCI working group comprising former head coach Rahul Dravid, NCA chief VVS Laxman, Agarkar and BCCI general manager Abey Kuruvilla.

One of the reasons for this move was to ensure the selectors are able to give a wider pool of players, including those in the targeted group, enough opportunities heading into India's Test season. The four-team tournament is set to run until September 22 with each side set to play the other three in a round-robin format. The topper at the end of the standings will be the winner.