Top three wicket-keepers to watch out for in the Duleep Trophy 2025

Barring star cricketer trio of captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and speedster Jasprit Bumrah, Indian cricketers will be back in action during the upcoming edition of the Duleep Trophy 2024. A total of four teams namely Team A, Team B, Team C and Team D in the read-ball tournament. This competition will also serve as a very good preparation for the Indian team's upcoming Test series at home against Bangladesh and New Zealand. On the other hand, players like Ruturaj Gaikwad (Team C), Shreyas Iyer (Team D), Shubman Gill (Team A) and Abhimanyu Easwaran (Team B) will have a great opportunity to lead their respective teams in the upcoming domestic competition. In this blog post, we will take a look at the top three wicket-keepers to watch out for in the Duleep Trophy 2024 season. 

Top three wicket-keepers to watch out for in the Duleep Trophy 2024

1. Rishabh Pant

Without much of doubt, the national selectors, newly appointed head coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Rohit Sharma will definitely back Rishabh Pant as the first choice wicket-keeper batsman for the upcoming India vs Bangladesh two-match Test series scheduled to begin with the 1st Test match starting from 19 September, 2024. Incidentally, the swashbuckling left-handed batsman played his last Test match for India in 2022 against Bangladesh. He will get some much-needed game time in red-ball cricket while featuring in the Duleep Trophy squad, Team B. Earlier this year, the southpaw batter made his international cricket return after suffering that career-threatening car accident during India's famous triumph at the 2024 T20 World Cup. During his short Test career, Pant has delivered amazingly well smashing a total of 2271 runs from 33 matches at an impressive average of over 43 that includes 11 half-centuries and 5 hundreds. 

2. Dhruv Jurel

In the absence of Rishabh Pant, India started with KS Bharat as the wicket-keeper batsman in the playing XI during the first two Test matches against England at home earlier this year, however, he failed to deliver especially with the bat. 23-year-old Dhruv Jurel then made his Test debut in the third game against England. He played a breakthrough innings with the bat in the Ranchi Test match that helped the Indian team register a famous victory. While playing in three Test matches so far, the right-hander has scored 190 runs at an average of more than 63 that includes a highest score of 90. Jurel is part of Team A in the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2024 and he will be looking forward to give his best in order to be selected for the IND vs BAN Test series at home. 

3. Ishan Kishan

Things have not turned out very well for Ishan Kishan in the recent past as he was dropped from India's central contract list and has also not been in the consideration to be part of the national side across the three formats of the game. Earlier this year, the left-handed wicket-keeper batsman surprisingly made himself unavailable just before the start of the Test series in South Africa due to some mental health issues. However, he then played for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2024), but did not faced the best of forms with the bat. Incidentally, Ishan made his return to red-ball cricket during the recently concluded Buchi Babu tournament where he went on to notch up a fabulous hundred. He has also scored a Test fifty against West Indies in 2023 and will be looking to showcase his potential when he takes the gloves for Team D in the Duleep Trophy. 

Duleep Trophy 2024 squads

Team A: Shubman Gill (C), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.

Team B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant, Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).

Team C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.

Team D: Shreyas lyer (C), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (WK), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (WK), Saurabh Kumar.