On Wednesday, the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) announced the squad for the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019 and Dhruv Shorey will be leading the team. Explosive wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant and the young fast bowler, Navdeep Saini were also included in the squad.
The tournament will be played between September 24 and October 13. The seasoned opener, Shikhar Dhawan, however, opted out of the squad for at least the initial phase citing family reasons. He had initially confirmed his availability for the domestic tournament along with Pant and Saini and it gave a big boost to the domestic team.
But the recent reports of the Times of India (TOI) quoting Delhi senior team’s chairman of selectors Atul Wassan said: “Shikhar needs to go back to Australia to attend to some family matters. He has said that he will join the squad at a later date.”
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It will be interesting to see how Rishabh manages to play the tournament since he is part of the Indian Test squad which will be busy playing South Africa in a three-match series starting October 2. Saini hasn’t been included in the Test squad while Dhawan is no more a part of India’s red-ball set-up.
Delhi will be playing their first game against Vidarbha and they expect to get the services of both Pant and Saini, who recently made his India debut in T20Is in the West Indies, in the initial games. Other players picked in the squad include Nitish Rana, Subodh Bhatt, Hiten Dalal, Pawan Negi, and others.
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Talking about the same, Wassan said, “Pant is expected to play at least first two to three games for Delhi as he will then report for the national team. Rishabh himself said that he wanted to play.” He also added that Dhawan will travel to Australia after the conclusion of the ongoing T20I series against South Africa. He will be joining Delhi team in the mid of the tournament.
Delhi squad for Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019:
Dhruv Shorey (captain), Nitish Rana, Rishabh Pant, Himmat Singh, Subodh Bhati, Hiten Dalal, Kunal Chandela, Pawan Negi, Lalit Yadav, Anuj Rawat, Navdeep Saini, Manan Sharma, Kunwar Bhiduri, Kulwant Khejroliya, Vikas Tokas, Tejas Baroka.
