Duleep Trophy: Iyer, Jaiswal and Thakur eye big performances for strong West Zone

Bengaluru, Sep 3
Shreyas Iyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Shardul Thakur will be eyeing to put in big performances for a strong West Zone side when they take on Central Zone in their Duleep Trophy semifinal clash at the BCCI COE Ground on Thursday.

The Mumbai-based trio has a golden opportunity to hit the ground running through the upcoming last four clash, especially with several crucial assignments on the horizon. For Iyer, the Duleep Trophy offers a chance to make big runs after his exclusion from India's Asia Cup squad left everyone baffled.

A strong outing could help Iyer in making the cut for the Tests against the West Indies and South Africa, as well as feature in ‘A’ team assignments. For Jaiswal, it’s a valuable opportunity to maintain his red-ball playing rhythm ahead of the home Test season.

Thakur, who will be captaining West Zone, will be focused on chipping in with solid all-round contributions after having an indifferent time in Tests against England. For players like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tushar Deshpande and Tanush Kotian, its an opportunity to make this outing count and be in consideration for Test team honours.

What will also be delightful for West Zone, who won’t have Sarfaraz Khan for this game due to a quadriceps injury and has been replaced by Shivalik Sharma, is that they could have a slight edge over Central Zone in terms of personnel availability. But Central Zone can’t be taken lightly, considering stand-in captain Rajat Patidar, Danish Malewar and Shubham Sharma hit centuries while Yash Rathod had twin fifties.

They also have a good bowling attack in Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar, Manav Suthar and Harsh Dubey. But they will take the field without Kuldeep Yadav, who will be joining the Asia Cup team in Dubai and Aryan Juyal, who couldn’t keep wickets in clash against North East Zone after retiring hurt on 60 due to a blow in the abdomen.

Moreover, Central Zone won’t have services of regular captain Dhruv Jurel, who is recovering from an illness (reportedly dengue), with Vidarbha skipper Akshay Wadkar added to the squad.

Squads:

West Zone: Shardul Thakur (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Aarya Desai, Harvik Desai (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Shivalik Sharma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jaymeet Patel, Manan Hingrajia, Saurabh Nawale (wk), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Arzan Nagwaswalla.

Central Zone: Dhruv Jurel (captain & wk), Rajat Patidar (vc), Aryan Juyal, Danish Malewar, Sanjeet Desai, Aditya Thakare, Deepak Chahar, Saransh Jain, Ayush Pandey, Shubham Sharma, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Manav Suthar, Khaleel Ahmed, and Akshay Wadkar.