Tilak Verma: Samson was able to play only half of IPL 2025 due to injury, from which he has not yet recovered.
Tilak Verma is all set to captain South Zone in the Duleep Trophy to be held in August. The BCCI has decided to adopt the zonal format back for the upcoming edition, that is, now there will be South Zone, North Zone, East Zone and West Zone. Now a report has claimed that Hyderabad batsman Tilak Verma is all set to captain South Zone in the Duleep Trophy.
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The Tilak Verma-led side will take on the winner of the quarter-finals in the first semi-final, which will be played at the BCC Centre of Excellence Grounds in Bengaluru. If the team wins or takes a first innings lead in the semi-final, it will play the final against the winner of the second semi-final, where West Zone is one of the pre-seeded teams.
According to the Indian Express
According to the Indian Express, Tilak will be the captain of the South Zone while Azharuddin will be the vice-captain. The team includes many renowned players like Sai Kishore, Devdutt Padikkal, N Jagadeesan and Vijaykumar Vaishakh. Surprisingly, Tamil Nadu’s Sai Sudarshan, who was part of the Indian team playing on the England tour, has not been included in this team.
Tilak was formally finalized as the captain after the zonal selection committee meeting in Puducherry recently. Meanwhile, Mohammad Azharuddin, who led Kerala to the Ranji Trophy final last year, has been named as the vice-captain of the team. The Kerala team is missing star cricketer Sanju Samson. However, the wicketkeeper-batsman suffered an injury during IPL 2025 and may not have recovered yet, which is why the selectors considered him.
South Zone Duleep Trophy 2025 Squad
Tilak Verma (Captain) (Hyderabad), Mohammad Azharuddin (Vice-Captain) (Kerala), Tanmay Agarwal (Hyderabad), Devdutt Padikkal (Karnataka), Mohit Kale (Pondicherry), Salman Nizar (Kerala), Naryankar Jagadeesan (Tamil Nadu), Tripuran Vijay (Andhra), R Sai Kishore (Tamil Nadu), Tanay Thyagarajan (Hyderabad), Vijaykumar Vaishya (Karnataka), Nidhish MD (Kerala), Ricky Bhui (Andhra), Basil NP (Kerala), Gurjapaneet Singh (Tamil Nadu), Snehal Kauthankar (Goa)
Stand-by players: Mohit Redkar, R Smran, Ankit Sharma, Aiden Appleton, Andre Siddarth, Sheikh Rasheed.
