Three senior India players named in Delhi one-day squad, Gautam Gambhir to lead

Shikhar Dhawan is set to feature for Delhi from December 10

The Delhi squad has been named for the North Zone leg of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, which will take place between December 10 and 18, and the major talking point is the inclusion of Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan and Ishant Sharma. Gautam Gambhir had been named captain. Ashish Nehra, who is not part of Delhi’s Ranji Trophy scheme, has also been named.

MS Dhoni is also to take part in the one-day tournament for Jharkhand, under the leadership of Varun Aaron or Shahbaz Nadeem.

The naming of the national team players for the state team makes this year’s edition of India’s biggest domestic 50-over meet a star-studded event. Another thing it indicates is that the much speculated upon India-Pakistan series will not come to fruition in December.

Three stand byes have been named in the Delhi squad in case the Pakistan series does get underway, but it seems as of now that Team India’s next assignment is in Australia in January next year.

No big issue is Virat plays under Gautam: Delhi

The selection committee chairman Vinay Lamba could not give a convincing answer as to why India’s current Test captain and a prolific ODI player, Kohli, was not named captain if he is available.

“We had announced Gautam as the captain for the whole season as the international players were not supposed to be available. I don’t think one should make a big issue if Virat plays under Gautam,” he said after the meeting was held at the Roshanara ground on Friday.

“Look, we have not had any direct contact with the players but we did not want to take any chances in case they are available. But as a safety measure, we have kept three stand byes also,” Lamba said.

Interestingly, the last time when Kohli played for Delhi, in a Challengers Trophy tournament back in 2013, he led the side that had both Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.

Squad: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Unmukt Chand, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Nitish Rana, Milind Kumar, Manan Sharma, Pawan Negi, Ashish Nehra, Pradeep Sangwan, Ishant Sharma, Navdeep Saini, Subodh Bhati, Shivam Sharma, Rahul Yadav (wk). Stand-byes: Dhruv Shorey (Shikhar Dhawan), Vaibhav Rawal (Virat Kohli), Vikas Tokas (Ishant Sharma).

With the Ranji quarter-final line-up decided, India’s domestic players are set to take a break from the longer format of the game to fight it out for the crown of the best 50-over side in the country:

Virat Kohli to play under the captaincy of Gautam gambhir in vijay hazare trophy .Incrediable India or Intolrent India ?

— Kaushal Jain (@kKaushaljain) December 4, 2015

@SHIRAZSHER @RanjiKarnataka we should try n defend vijay hazare trophy n show that this ouster was just an aberration

— Ramachandra M (@nanuramu) December 4, 2015