Duleep Trophy 2026 captains and vice‑captains confirmed ahead of August 23 start
The captains and vice‑captains for the Duleep Trophy 2026 have been announced ahead of the tournament that begins on August 23 at the BCCI Centre of Excellence, with six zonal sides set to contest a straight knockout competition across the CoE’s two grounds; the final is scheduled from September 6.
The six participating teams are Central Zone, North Zone, West Zone, South Zone, East Zone and the North East Zone, with the quarter-finals featuring East Zone v North East Zone and North Zone v West Zone on the opening dates. All matches are scheduled to start at 9:30 AM IST, Central Zone and South Zone have been pre-seeded into the semi-finals, and Central Zone enter the tournament as defending champions after lifting their seventh Duleep Trophy title in the 2025-26 season. In that season Yash Rathod was named Player of the Match and Saransh Jain finished as Player of the Tournament with 16 wickets in two matches, including eight in the final.
The named captains and vice‑captains across the six squads are: Ishan Kishan (C) with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (VC); Ruturaj Gaikwad (C) with Shams Mulani (VC); Rajat Patidar (C) with Rinku Singh (VC); Tilak Varma (C) with Ricky Bhui (VC); Kanhaiya Wadhawan (C) with Ayush Badoni (VC); and Jonathan Rongsen (C).
One squad list published for the competition includes Ishan Kishan (C), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (VC), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sudip Gharami, Shahbaz Ahmed, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Mohammed Shami, Mukesh Kumar, Kumar Kushagra (WK), Shikhar Mohan, Anukul Roy, Virat Singh, Subhranshu Senapati, Denish Das and Abhijit Sarkar.
Another squad group released lists Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Prithvi Shaw, Shams Mulani (VC), Harvik Desai (WK), Shivalik Sharma, Sarfaraz Khan, Jaymeet Patel, Musheer Khan, Shardul Thakur, Urvil Patel (WK), Siddharth Desai, Tanush Kotian, Atit Sheth, Tushar Deshpande and Mukesh Chaudhary.
A separate squad list names Rajat Patidar (C), Rinku Singh (VC), Aryan Juyal (WK), Saransh Jain, Kunal Singh Rathod (WK), Aman Mokhade, Zeeshan Ansari, Aryan Pandey, Arshad Khan, Kunal Chandela, Ayush Pandey, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Yash Thakur and Nachiket Bhute; stand‑by players were published as Amandeep Khare, Mayank Mishra, Saurabh Rawat, Bhargav Merai, Kunal Yadav and Kumar Kartikeya.
Additional published squads include Tilak Varma (C) with Ricky Bhui (VC) alongside K. Himateja, R. Smaran, N. Jagadeesan (WK), Karun Nair, Shreyas Gopal, Abhinav Tejrana, Shaik Rasheed, Tanay Thyagarajan, K. Sai Teja, Tripurana Vijay, Aman Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa and M.D. Nideesh; and a North East Zone group led by Jonathan Rongsen (C) featuring Robin Limboo, Techi Neri, Bishworjit Singh Konthoujam, Imliwati Lemtur, Kishan Lyndoh, Arpit Subhas, Priyojit K. Ronald Meitei, Joseph Lal Thankhuma, Akash Kumar Choudhary, Lalrempuia, Jotin Singh Pheiroijam, Vino G. Zhimomi and Ashish Thapa.
The tournament opens on August 23 at the BCCI Centre of Excellence with East Zone facing North East Zone and North Zone meeting West Zone on the same dates; live television coverage has been announced on the Star Sports network with streaming available on the JioHotstar platform.