The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has withdrawn its decision to scrap the Duleep Trophy and announced the schedule and squads for the three-team tournament on Wednesday (August 30).

The 56-year-old tournament was absent from the BCCI’s domestic programme for 2017/18, the season kicking-off with the Ranji Trophy starting on October 6 and ending with the 50-over tournament Deodhar Trophy on March 18, 2018. But a day after Sourav Ganguly’s letter to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) arguing against the removal, the governing body was forced to bring back the tournament.

The tournament is set to played in Kanpur and Lucknow from September 7 to 29, featuring the pink ball instead of the normal red. Suresh Raina, who is seeking for a comeback to the national side, has been named captain of India Blue. Opener Abhinav Mukund will lead the India Red side while wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel has been named captain for India Green.

The final and one other game is scheduled to be played at the completed Ekana International Stadium in Lucknow with the legendary Green Park Stadium elected to host the other two matches.

Squads

India Red: Abhinav Mukund (c), Priyank Panchal, Sudip Chatterjee, Ishank Jaggi, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant (wk), B Indrajith, K Gowtham, Karn Sharma, Basil Thampi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ashok Dinda, Rahul Singh, CV Milind.

India Green: M Vijay, R Samarth, Prashant Chopra, Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair, Ankit Bawne, Parthiv Patel (c, wk), Shahbaz Nadeem, Parvez Rasool, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj, Sidharth Kaul, Mayank Dagar, Nitin Saini, Aniket Choudhary.

India Blue: Suresh Raina (c), Samit Gohel, KS Bharat, Abhinayu Easwaran, Manoj Tiwary, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar, Ishan Kishan (wk), Jayant Yadav, Bharghav Bhatt, Kaushik Gandhi, Ishant Sharma, Ankit Rajpoot, Sagun Kamat, Jaydev Unadkat.

Schedule

Match 1: India Red vs India Green, September 7 (Lucknow)

Match 2: India Red vs India Blue, September 13 (Kanpur)

Match 3: India Blue vs India Green, September 19 (Kanpur)

Final: September 25 (Lucknow)

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