Dhoni to lead Jharkhand in Vijay Hazare Trophy

Jharkhand had a stupendous Ranji Trophy season last year, where they reached the semi-finals for the first time. Dhoni mentored the team during the Ranji Trophy and was present at the ground during the semi-final match against Gujarat in Nagpur.  Before that, he had also worked with the team in the lead-up to the Buchi Babu All-India Invitational Cricket Tournament hosted by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) in August 2016.

However, the team would receive an even bigger impetus when they are led on to the field by MS Dhoni on February 25 for their first match of this year's Vijay Hazare tournament. The ex-Indian captain, who has retired from all forms of international cricket, will be seen in action even as the Indian team takes on Australia in the first of the four-match Test series two days before.

In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Jharkhand are placed in Group D along with new-entrant Chhattisgarh, Hyderabad, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Saurashtra, and Services. They will begin their campaign against Karnataka in Kolkata on February 25. As India are not slated to play any matches before the Champions Trophy in June, this is going to be Dhoni’s last 50-over tournament before that.

Last year, Dhoni had also played in the knock-out stage of the Vijay Hazare Trophy but did not captain the team. Instead, fast bowler Varun Aaron led Jharkhand to the quarter-finals. 

Jharkhand squad: MS Dhoni (c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Singh, Ishank Jaggi, Saurabh Tiwary, Kaushal Singh, Pratyush Singh, Shahbaz Nadeem, Sonu Kumar Singh, Varun Aaron, Rahul Shukla, Anukul Roy, Monu Kumar Singh, Jaskaran Singh, Anand Singh, Shahsheem Rathore, Vikash Singh, Kumar Deobrat