Duleep Trophy 2022 | Manoj Tiwary handed East Zone reins, Mandeep Singh to lead North Zone
Two more squads have been announced for the Duleep Trophy, with Manoj Tiwary and Mandeep Singh announced skippers for the East and North Zone respectively. Previously, Ajinkya Rahane and Karan Sharma were also named as captains for the tournament as it gears up to commence on September 8.
The Duleep Trophy is returning to the domestic calendar after a season's break and will kickstart the Indian season this time around. The comeback has also seen the tournament resort to a zonal setup, ditching the approach of having three colour-coded all-India teams. The onus thus now lies with chief selectors from states to pick the squads for their respective zones, taking over the duty from the Board of Control for Cricket in India. In the latest developments, both East Zone and North Zone announced their contingents for the tournament, which gets underway on September 8 in Tamil Nadu and concludes on September 25.
Manoj Tiwary will be the face of the East Zone, with the prolific Bengal batsman being the squad's most experienced player. The 36-year-old has 17 Indian caps to his name and has been playing first-class cricket for 18 years. He will be joined by six other teammates of his who made it to the Ranji Trophy semi-final last season, including Shahbaz Ahmed and Ishan Porel. Jharkhand batter Virat Singh will serve as Tiwary's vice-captain, with his teammate Shahbaz Nadeem and Assam's Riyan Parag other notable names to be in the team's ranks.
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Find OutMeanwhile, Punjab's leading run scorer in red-ball cricket last season Mandeep Singh will be heading proceedings for the north zone and will have Delhi's Dhruv Shorey as his deputy. Under-19 World Cup winning captain Yash Dhoull has also been given a nod by the selectors alongside capped pacer Navdeep Saini. The likes of Manan Vohra from Uttarakhand and Himanshu Rana from Haryana make for a good-looking batting unit.
East Zone squad: Manoj Tiwary (captain), Sudip Kr Gharami, Anushtup Majumdar, Abhishek Porel (wk), Shahbaz Ahmed, Ishan Porel, Akash Deep (Bengal), Virat Singh (vice-captain), Nazim Siddiqui, Kumar Kushagra, Shahbaz Nadeem (Jharkhand), Mukhtar Hussain, Riyan Parag (Assam), Mani Shankar Mura Singh (Tripura), Shantanu Mishra (Odisha).
North Zone squad: Mandeep Singh (captain), Anmol Malhotra, Siddharth Kaul (Punjab), Dhruv Shorey (vice-captain), Navdeep Saini, Yash Dhull, Vikas Mishra (Delhi), Himanshu Rana (Haryana), Akash Vashisht, Mayank Dagar, Nishant Sindhu (Himachal Pradesh), Jagjit Singh, Manan Vohra (Uttarakhand), Pulkit Narang (Services), Qamran Iqbal (Jammu and Kashmir).