Pant is part of the Abhimanyu Easwaran-led India B squad. Also set to make a comeback after a lengthy injury layoff is fast bowler Prasidh Krishna, whose most recent competitive game was in January 2024.

Prasidh is in his last stages of rehab from a quadriceps tendon injury, for which he underwent surgery in February. He will miss the Maharaja T20 Trophy, Karnataka’s domestic T20 competition, to complete his rehab ahead of the first round of the Duleep Trophy matches that will be played simultaneously in Anantapur and Bengaluru.

There was also a call-up for top-order batter Tilak Varma, who suffered a wrist injury towards the end stages of IPL 2024. Due to the injury, Varma wasn’t considered for India’s second-string squad that played five T20Is in Zimbabwe.

The Ajit Agarkar-led panel has rewarded domestic form, an example of which is the inclusion of Mumbai allrounder Musheer Khan. Musheer, the 19-year-old, had a breakout year, in which he was part of India’s Under-19 World Cup squad as well as Mumbai’s victorious Ranji Trophy campaign.

Musheer, who struck a double-hundred in the Ranji quarter-final and a match-winning hundred in the final, will play alongside older sibling and India batter Sarfaraz Khan, one of the several middle-order contenders for a Test berth.

Allrounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, who is also part of India B, has been included subject to fitness. Reddy is recovering from a sports hernia surgery in June, after being withdrawn from India’s T20I squad to Zimbabwe when the condition came to light.

Duleep Trophy 2024-25 squads

Team A: Shubman Gill (capt), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (wk), KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.

Team B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (wk), Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy (subject to fitness), Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (wk)

Team C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (wk), Sandeep Warrier

Team D: Shreyas Iyer (capt), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (wk), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (wk), Saurabh Kumar