The great Indian home cricket season for 2025-26 will begin with the Duleep Trophy in late August. Played primarily as a preparatory event ahead of India’s home long home Test season, the Duleep Trophy will return to its old zonal format system after a break from the four-team format last year, when the squads were directly picked by the senior national selectors as opposed to the ordeal of zonal selections.
While there were no knockout matches last season, the tournament will begin with the quarter-final fixtures between North Zone and East Zone and the Central Zone and North East Zone. Finalists of the last zonal edition in 2023 – South Zone and West Zone – have marked their berths directly in the semi-finals of the tournament.
Duleep Trophy 2025-26: Dates and Venues
The upcoming Duleep Trophy will predominantly be played at a single venue at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. The tournament will run from August 28 to September 15.
Duleep Trophy 2025: Full Schedule
Quarter-finals
August 28-31, 2025: North Zone vs East Zone – Venue: BCCI COE Ground 1, Bengaluru
August 28-31, 2025: Central Zone vs North East Zone – Venue: BCCI COE Ground 2, Bengaluru
Semi-finals
September 4-7, 2025: South Zone vs Winner QF1 – Venue: BCCI COE Ground 1, Bengaluru
September 4-7, 2025: North Zone vs Winner QF2 – Venue: BCCI COE Ground 2, Bengaluru
Final
September 11-15, 2025: Final – Venue: BCCI COE Ground 1, Bengaluru
Duleep Trophy 2025 squads
South Zone squad: Tilak Varma (c), Mohammed Azharuddeen (vc), Tanmay Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Mohit Kale, Salman Nizar, Narayan Jagadeesan, Tripurana Vijay, R Sai Kishore, Tanay Thyagarajan, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Nidheesh MD, Ricky Bhui, Basil NP, Gurjapneet Singh, Snehal Kauthankar.
East Zone squad: Ishan Kishan (c), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vc), Sandeep Patnaik, Virat Singh, Denish Das, Sridam Paul, Sharandeep Singh, Kumar Kushagra, Riyan Parag, Utkarsh Singh, Manishi, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Mohammed Shami.
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West Zone squad: Shardul Thakur (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Aarya Desai, Harvik Desai (wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jaymeet Patel, Manan Hingrajia, Saurabh Nawale (wicket-keeper), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Dharmandrasinh Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Arzan Nagwaswala
North Zone squad: Shubman Gill (c), Shubham Khajuria, Ankit Kumar (vc), Ayush Badoni, Yash Dhull, Ankit Kalsi, Nishant Sandhu, Sahil Lotra, Mayank Dagar, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Anshul Kamboj, Auqib Nabi, Kanhaiya Wadhawan.
Central Zone squad: Dhruv Jurel (c/wk), Rajat Patidar*, Aryan Juyal, Danish Malewar, Sanjeet Desai, Kuldeep Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Deepak Chahar, Saransh Jain, Ayush Pandey, Shubham Sharma, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey, Manav Suthar, Khaleel Ahmed
North East Zone squad: TBA
