Vijay Hazare Trophy is all set to kick off on December 24 as fans eagerly await the return of stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the domestic premier 50-over competition.
Almost all the current Indian players will be in action in the tournament after the BCCI's diktat mandated the players to feature in the tournament. This came as the Indian team has a break of nearly three weeks in between their international assignments of the home series between South Africa and New Zealand.
Kohli to return to VHT after 2010, Rohit to play in tournament after 2018
Meanwhile, the tournament will see the return of the two stalwarts after quite some time. Kohli last played in the Vijay Hazare Trophy in the 2009/10 season when he used to lead Delhi, while Rohit featured in the tournament in 2018 during Mumbai's quarterfinal and semifinal clashes. The return of the two giants has been the biggest eye-catching point of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Meanwhile, ahead of the start of the tournament, here is all you need to know about it.
Vijay Hazare Trophy start and end dates and format
The tournament will start on December 24 with all 32 teams in action. Each team will play seven matches in the league stage, with the top two from each group proceeding into the quarterfinals, following which the semifinals and the final will take place.
The league stage will end on January 8, with the knockouts then starting from January 12 onwards. The final will be played on January 18.
Key first-round fixtures in tournament
There are several matches to keep an eye on in the first round. Virat Kohli-starrer Delhi will be up against Andhra in their opening round, while Rohit Sharma's Mumbai will face Sikkim in their first match.
India Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill's Punjab will be facing Ruturaj Gaikwad's Maharashtra that also features Prithvi Shaw.
All squads announced
Puducherry: Yet to announce
Tamil Nadu: N. Jagadeesan (C), B. Sai Sudharsan (Vice-capt), B. Indrajith, Pradosh Ranjan Paul, C. Andre Siddarth, M. Boopathi Vaishna Kumar, S. Mohamed Ali, S.R. Athish, R. Sai Kishore, Sachin Rathi, Gurjapneet Singh, C.V. Achyuth, G. Govinth, R. Sonu Yadav, Sunny Sandhu, V.S. Karthick Manikandan.
Madhya Pradesh: Venkatesh Iyer (c), Harsh Gawli, Himanshu Mantri (WK), Yash Dubey, Shubham Sharma, Harpreet Singh, Rishabh Chauhan, Ritik Tada, Kumar Kartikeya, Saransh Jain, Shivang Kumar, Aryan Pandey, Rahul Batham, Tripuresh Singh, Mangesh Yadav, Madhav Tiwari
Rajasthan: Manav Suthar (c), Manendra Singh, Ram Mohan Chauhan, Sumit Godara, Mahipal Lomror, Deepak Hooda, Karan Lamba, Mukul Chaudhary, Ajay Singh Kukna, Khaleel Ahmed, Aniket Choudhary (vc), Ashok Sharma, Aditya Singh Rathore, Samarpit Joshi, Akash Singh, Rahul Chahar.
Jharkhand: Ishan Kishan (c), Virat Singh, Utkarsh Singh, Kumar Kushagra (wk) (vc), Robin Minz, Anukul Roy, Sharandeep Singh, Shikhar Mohan, Pankaj Kumar (wk), Bala Krishna, Mohammad Kounain Qureshi, Shubh Sharma, Amit Kumar, Manishi, Abhinav Sharan, Sushant Mishra, Vikash Singh, Saurabh Shekhar, Rajandeep Singh, Shubham Singh.
Karnataka: Mayank Agarwal (c), Karun Nair (vc), Devdutt Padikkal, R. Smaran, KL Shrijith, Abhinav Manohar, Shreyas Gopal, V. Vyshak, Manvanth Kumar, Shreesha Achar, Abhilash Shetty, B.R. Sharath, Harshil Dharmani, Dhruv Prabhakar, KL Rahul, Prasidh Krishna.
Kerala: Rohan Kunnummal (c), Sanju Samson (wk), Vishnu Vinod (wk), Mohammad Azharuddeen (Wicketkeeper), Ahammed Imran, Salman Nizar, Abhishek J. Nair, Krishna Prasad, Akhil Scaria, Abhijith Praveen V, Biju Narayanan, Ankit Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Vignesh Puthur, Nidheesh MD, Asif KM, Abhishek P. Nair, Sharafudeen NM, Eden Apple Tom.
Tripura: Manisankar Murasingh (c), Udiyan Bose, Rajat Dey, Sridam Paul, Vijay Shankar, Hanuma Vihari, Parvez Sultan, Rana Dutta, Ajay Sarkar, Swapnil Singh, Saurabh Das, Bikramjit Debnath, Arjun Debnath, Subham Ghosh, Saruk Hossain, Tejasvi Jaiswal, Riaz Uddin, Viki Saha, Abhijit Sarkar, Nirupam Sen, Sentu Sarkar, Arkaprabha Sinha, Debaprasad Sinha.
Chandigarh: Manan Vohra (c), Jagjeet S Sandhu, Arslan Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Ankit Kaushik, Arjun Azad, Tushar Joshi, Taranpreet Singh, Nikhil Thakur, Hartejassvi Kapoor, Nishunk Birla, Vishu Kashyap, Hardik Choudhary, Sanyam Saini, Rohit Dhanda.
Jammu & Kashmir: Paras Dogra (c), Shubham Khajuria (vc), Qamran Iqbal, Vivrant Sharma, Yawer Hassan, Abdul Samad, Kawalpreet Singh, Rydham Sharma (wk), Abid Mushtaq, Ashwin Murugan, Sahil Lotra, Auqib Nabi, Yudhvir Singh, Sunil Kumar, Lone Nasir Muzaffar.
Assam: Sumit Ghadigaonkar (c) (wk), Denish Das, Nihar Deka, Pradyun Saikia, Sibsankar Roy, Saurav Mousam Dihingia, Sarupam Purkayastha, Avinav Choudhury, Rahul Singh, Akash Sengupta, Ayushman Malakar, Muktar Hussain, Bhargab Pratim Lahkar, Ruhinandan Pegu (wk), Abdul Ajij Kuraishi.
Baroda: Krunal Pandya (c), Priyanshu Moliya, Mitesh Patel (wk), Shivalik Sharma, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Vishnu Solanki, Aryan Chavda, Hardik Pandya, Atit Seth, Raj Limbani, Rasikh Salam, Karan Umatt, Nitya Pandya, Bhanu Pania, Amit Pasi, Mahesh Pithiya, Ninad Rathva, Shashwat Rawat, Lakshit Toksiya.
Hyderabad: Rahul Singh (c), Rahul Buddhi (vc), Tanmay Agarwal, Tanay Thyagarajan, Aman Rao, Abhirath Reddy, Nitesh Reddy, A Varun Goud, Pragnay Reddy, Prateek Reddy, Nitin Sai Yadav, Rakshann Readdi, Kartikeya Kak, Ilyaan Sathani, Md Arfaz.
Uttar Pradesh: Abhishek Goswami, Adarsh Singh, Priyam Garg, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Aryan Juyal (wk), Sameer Rizvi, Rinku Singh, Prashant Veer, Kartik Tyagi, Vipraj Nigam, Zeeshan Ansari, Aaradhya Yadav, Vaibhav Chaudhary, Kartik Yadav, Kunal Tyagi, Vineet Panwar, Rituraj Sharma.
Bengal: Abhimanyu Easwaran (c), Anustup Majumdar, Abishek Porel (wk), Sudip Gharami, Sumanta Gupta, Sumit Nag (wk), Chandrahas Dash, Shahbaz Ahmed, Karan Lal, Mohammed Shami, Akash Deep, Mukesh Kumar, Sayan Ghosh, Ravi Kumar, Aamir Gani, Vishal Bhati, Ankit Mishra.
Vidarbha: Harsh Dubey (c), Yash Thakur (vc), Atharva Taide, Dhruv Shorey, Aman Mokhade, Yash Rathod, Shivam Deshmukh (wk), Akshay Wadkar, Nachiket Bhute, Darshan Nalkande, R. Samarth, Parth Rekhade, Dipesh Parwani, Praful Hinge, Shubham Dubey, Ganesh Bhosle.
Mumbai: Shardul Thakur (c), Rohit Sharma (two games), Ishan Mulchandani, Musheer Khan, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sarfaraz Khan, Siddhesh Lad, Chinmay Sutar, Akash Anand (wk), Hardik Tamore (wk), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Tushar Deshpande, Onkar Tarmale, Sylvester D'Souza, Sairaj Patil, Suryansh Shedge.
Sikkim: Leeyong Lepcha, Gurinder Singh, K Sai Satwik, M Kranti Kumar, Anwesh Karan Sharma, Amit Rajera, Rahul Kumar, Ankur Malik, Ashish Thapa, Aamir Iqbal Bhutia, Abhishek Kr Shah, Siddharth Prasad, Palzor Tamang, MD Saptulla, Robin Limboo.
Himachal Pradesh: Mridul Surroch (c), Ankush Bains (wk), Innesh Mahajan (wk), Ekant Sen, Akash Vasisht, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Dagar, Abhishek Kumar, Amanpreet Singh, Aryaman Singh, Ayush Jamwal, Ankit Kalsi, Kushal Pal, Mukul Negi, Nitin Sharma, Pukhraj Mann, Rohit Kumar, Vipin Sharma.
Uttarakhand: Kunal Chandela (c), Deepesh Nailwal, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Mayank Mishra, Agnivesh Ayachi, Akash Madhwal, Jagadeesha Suchith, Aarav Mahajan, Avneesh Sudha, Devendra Singh Bora, Shashwat Dangwal, Harshit Paliwal, Jagmohan Nagarkoti, Naveen Kumar Singh, Nikhil Harsh, Saurabh Rawat, Sanskar Rawat, Aanjaneya Suryavanshi.
Chhattisgarh: Ajay Mandal, Amandeep Khare (c), Anuj Tiwari, Ashutosh Singh, Ayush Pandey, Harsh Sahu (wk), Harsh Yadav, M Ravi Kiran, Mayank Verma (wk), Mayank Yadav, Aditya Sarvate, Prateek Yadav, Sanjeet Desai, Shubham Agrawal, Sourabh Majumdar, Mohit Raut, Vikalp Tiwari.
Goa: Deepraj Gaonkar (c), Snehal Kauthankar (vc), Lalit Yadav, Darshan Misal, Suyash Prabhudessai, Vasuki Koushik, Arjun Tendulkar, Vikash Singh, Kashyap Bakhale, Rajashekhar Harikant, Amulya Pandrekar, Shubham Desai, Shubham Tari, Abhinav Tejrana, Azaan Thota.
Maharashtra: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Prithvi Shaw, Arshin Kulkarni, Siddhesh Veer, Ankeet Bawane, Rahul Tripathi, Saurabh Navale (wk), Vicky Ostwal, Jalaj Saxena, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Rajneesh Gurbani, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Prashant Solanki, Nikhil Naik (wk), Pradeep Dadhe, Siddharth Mhatre, Sachin Dhas, Satyajeet Bacchav.
Punjab: Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Arshdeep Singh, Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Harnoor Pannu, Anmolpreet Singh, Uday Saharan, Naman Dhir, Salil Arora (wk), Sanvir Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Jashanpreet Singh, Gurnoor Brar, Harpreet Brar, Raghu Sharma, Krish Bhagat, Gourav Choudhary, Sukhdeep Bajwa
Odisha: Shantanu Mishra, Swastik Samal, Om T. Munde, Dinesh Kumar Majhi (wk), Aashirwad Swain (wk), Biplab Samantray (c), Prayash Kumar Singh, Sambit Baral, Rajesh Mohanty (vc), Debabrata Pradhan, Soumya R Lenka, Anil Parida, Sandeep Pattanaik, Badal Biswal, Govinda Poddar, Sayed Tufayl Ahmad.
Saurashtra: Harvik Desai (wk), Tarang Gohel, Chirag Jani, Prerak Mankad, Yuvraj Chudasama, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Chetan Sakariya, Ruchit Ahir, Parth Bhut, Sammar Gajjar, Ansh Gosai, Vishvaraj Jadeja, Jay Gohil, Hiten Kanbi, Pranav Karia, Hetvik Kotak, Ankur Panwar, Parswaraj Rana.
Haryana: Yet to announce
Railways: Karn Sharma (c), Ashutosh Sharma (vc), Suraj Ahuja (wk), Kush Marathe, Pratham Singh, Ravi Singh, Upendra Yadav (wk), Ansh Yadav, Raj Choudhary, Kunal Yadav, Mohammad Saif, Akash Pandey, Sahab Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Sharma, Adarsh Singh, Zubair Ali.
Andhra: Nitish Kumar Reddy (c), Ricky Bhui, KS Bharat (wk), Ashwin Hebbar, Shaikh Rasheed, Hemanth Reddy, SDNV Prasad, Y Sandeep, M Dhanush, Saurabh Kumar, B Vinay Kumar, T Vinay, CH Stephen, PV Satyanarayana Raju, KSN Raju, J Saketh Ram, CR Gnaneshwar, CH Sandeep.
Delhi: Rishabh Pant (c), Virat Kohli, Ishant Sharma, Navdeep Saini, Ayush Badoni (vc), Arpit Rana, Yash Dhull, Sarthak Ranjan, Priyansh Arya, Tejasvi Dahiya (wk), Nitish Rana, Hrithik Shokeen, Harsh Tyagi, Simarjeet Singh, Prince Yadav, Divij Mehra, Ayush Doseja, Vaibhav Kandpal, Rohan Rana, Anuj Rawat (stand-by).
Gujarat: Chintan Gaja (c), Urvil Patel (vc), Aarya Desai, Abhisek Desai, Jaymeet Patel, Kshitij Patel, Saurav Chauhan, Ahaan Poddar, Hemang Patel, Siddharth Desai, Ravi Bishnoi, Vishal Jayswal, Arzan Nagaswalla, Amit Desai, Japagnya Bhatt.
Services: Rajat Paliwal, Vikas Hathwala, Irfan Ali, Mohit Jangra, Mohit Ahlawat, Nakul Sharma, Pulkit Narang, Nitin Yadav, Poonam Poonia, Raj Bahadur, Ravi Chauhan, Sagar Dahiya, Arjun Sharma, Amit Shukla, Nitin Tanwar.
