India cricket team captain Shubman Gill will reportedly not take part in the Duleep Trophy 2024/25 which begins on August 28. After successfully leading India to a 2-2 draw in the five-match IND vs ENG Test series, the Punjab batter was named the captain of the North Zone. While Gill was expected to feature in just one match in the tournament as he has been selected for the Asia Cup 2025, a report has now claimed that he might give that game a miss too.
Gill to give Duleep Trophy a miss
As per Dainik Jagaran, a BCCI source has claimed that Gill will not take part in Duleep Trophy 2025/26. The report states that the physios and the medical team submitted a report of Shubman’s blood test to the board and said that he won’t be able to take part in the tournament. Ankit Kumar, who has been named North Zone’s vice-captain, is likely to take over the reins of the team.
Gill had a prolific series in England, which also marked his first as the Test captain. The batter finished with 754 runs to his name from 5 matches, averaging 75.40 and was India’s leading run-getter in the tour. He narrowly fell short of overtaking Sunil Gavaskar on the list of most runs scored by an Indian in a Test series while he is now just behind Don Bradman on the list of captains to have scored most runs in a series.
North Zone will commence their Duleep Trophy 2025/26 campaign by taking on East Zone at the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru. The selectors had already named the selectors have named Shubham Rohilla as Gill’s replacement when announcing the squad.
North Zone squad
Shubman Gill (c), Shubham Khajuria, Ankit Kumar (vc), Ayush Badoni, Yash Dhull, Ankit Kalsi, Nishant Sandhu, Sahil Lotra, Mayank Dagar, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Anshul Kamboj, Auqib Nabi, Kanhaiya Wadhawan
