Some major cricketers will be missing in the upcoming Deodhar Trophy, starting Saturday at ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. The BCCI did not pick MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh for the competition, and now Rohit Sharma and Kedar Jadhav will also not feature in Deodhar Trophy 2017.
Read: BCCI annual contracts
Rohit who was set to lead India Blue, has suffered knee injury, ruling him out of the competition. Harbhajan Singh will lead the side in his absence. India Red player Kedar Jadhav will miss the Deodhar Trophy due to some stomach problems.
Tamil Nadu is the third team in the competition, and their confidence will be sky high after winning the Vijay Hazare Trophy. They might have been keen to retain the winning squad for the Deodhar Trophy, but they have been forced to make some changes.
With Baba Aparajith, Aswin Crist selected to feature in the ACC Emerging Teams Cup in Bangladesh, Laxmesha Suryapprakash and Jagatheesan Kousik have found a chance to feature for Tamil Nadu in the competition.
All the three teams look equally balanced. India Red have players like Shikhar Dhawan, Manish Pandey, Mayank Agarwal, Ashok Dinda and with India Blue comprising Mandeep Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Manoj Tiwary, there are plenty of players, who will use this competition to make a mark ahead of the Champions Trophy.
There is very little room for error in the competition as the three teams play two matches each in the group stage, making their respective first matches huge.
Deodhar Trophy schedule
March 25: India A vs India B
Venue: ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam
Time: 9 am IST
March 26: India B vs Tamil Nadu
Venue: ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam
Time: 9 am IST
March 27: India A vs Tamil Nadu
Venue: ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam
Time: 9 am IST
March 29: Final
Venue: ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam
Time: 9 am IST
Squads: India Blue: Harbhajan Singh (c), Mandeep Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Manoj Tiwary, Rishabh Pant (w), Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya, Shahbaz Nadeem, Siddarth Kaul, Shardul Thakur, Prasidh Krishna, Pankaj Rao and Ruturaj Gaikwad
India Red: Parthiv Patel (c & w), Shikhar Dhawan, Manish Pandey, Mayank Agarwal, Ishank Jaggi, Gurkeerat Mann, Axar Patel, Akshay Karnewar, Ashok Dinda, Kulwant Khejroliya, Dhawal Kulkarni, Govinda Poddar and CV Milind
Tamil Nadu: Vijay Shankar (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ganga Sridhar Raju, B. Indrajith, L. Suryapprakash, M. Kaushik Gandhi, N. Jagadeesan, J. Kousik, M. Mohammed, W Anthony Dhas, R. Rohit, Rahil S Shah, M. Ashwin, R. Sai Kishore and M.S. Washington Sundar
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