Nagpur: Champions Vidarbha have been rewarded for their Ranji Trophy title winning heroics as four players have been selected in the squad for the Duleep Trophy multi-day tournament starting later this month at Bengaluru. Apart from four Vidarbha cricketers, Usman Ghani has been named coach of the Central Zone squad.
Top order batters Danish Malewar and Yash Rathod, all-rounder Harsh Dubey who has created a record of taking maximum wickets in a season with 69 scalps and Vidarbha’s second highest wicket-taker pacer Aditya Thakare have been picked in the team which will be led by stumper Dhruv Jurel, who played the last of the five Tests for India in the recently concluded Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy in England.
Gold Rate
08 Aug 2025
However, Vidarbha captain wicketkeeper Akshay Wadkar was once again ignored despite scoring huge runs and leading the side to winning Ranji Trophy this season. The right-handed batter had piled up 722 runs at an average of 45.12 in 10 matches, which was the highest among all wicketkeepers in Ranji season. For Danish Malewar, the right-handed batter made a dream Ranji debut scoring 783 runs with two centuries including one in the final against Kerala (153). He averaged 52.20 from nine matches.
Similarly, left-handed Yash Rathod piled up 963 runs from 10 matches with five centuries and three fifties and was the highest scorer of the Ranji season. All-rounder Harsh Dubey was a surety with his thundering performance. The left-arm spinner broke the record of most wickets in one Ranji season with 69 scalps. Add to that he had also scored 476 runs to win the man of the series award.
Pacer Aditya Thakare was the second highest wicket-taker for Vidarbha with 27 scalps and had taken an important fifer in the quarter-finals against Tamil Nadu. Seamer Yash Thakur, who had a lukewarm Ranji season, was named as the standby.
Vidarbha’s Usman Ghani, with his vast experience was handed the charge of coaching the Central Zone side while another Vidarbha support staff Amit Manikrao was named as the Performance Analyst.
The Central Zone team:
Dhruv Jurel (Capt & WK), Rajat Patidar (VC, subject to fitness clearance), Aryan Juyal, Danish Malewar, Sanchit Desai, Kuldeep Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Deepak Chahar, Saransh Jain, Ayush Pandey, Shubham Sharma, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Manav Suthar, Khaleel Ahmed.
Standbys: Madhav Kaushik, Yash Thakur, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Mahipal Lomror, Kuldeep Sen, Upendra Yadav.
Support staff: Usman Ghani (Coach); Fareed Ahmed (Physio); Amit Manikrao (Performance Analyst); Vineet Saxena (Asst Coach); Mayank Agrawal (Trainer); Navneet Mishra (Manager).
