Ankit and Rasheed added to South Zone Duleep Trophy squad with Tilak unavailable with the Asia Cup commitments.
Ankit and Rasheed added to South Zone squad for Duleep semi-final.
In place of Tilak Varma and R Sai Kishore, South Zone has selected Puducherry all-rounder Ankit Sharma and Andhra top-order batsman Shaik Rasheed for the Duleep Trophy semi-final, which gets off at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on September 4.
The South Zone captain, Tilak, will not play in the Duleep Trophy matches because he is part of India’s Asia Cup squad. Mohammed Azharuddeen, a wicketkeeper for Kerala who was first selected vice-captain, will now command the South Zone team. The vice-captain is Narayan Jagadeesan of Tamil Nadu, who was also called up for the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy’s fifth Test last month.
Meanwhile, Sai Kishore is still recovering from the finger injury that kept him out of the Chennai Buchi Babu preseason competition. During a first-division club match in Chennai, he injured his finger while following through to prevent a drive from M Shahrukh Khan.
With 24 from seven games at 28.95, Ankit, 34, recorded the second-highest number of wickets for Puducherry during the 2024–25 Ranji season. At 24.00, he also scored 216 runs. Rasheed, 20, was Andhra’s top run scorer in the previous Ranji season with 627 runs in 12 innings at 52.25, including a double-century against Hyderabad. He also played for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the 2025 Indian Premier League.
Ankit and Rasheed were both initially on South Zone’s standby list.