KL Rahul named in South Zone squad for Duleep Trophy final

India Test opener KL Rahul has been named in the South Zone squad for the Duleep Trophy final, slated to begin on September 6 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The 34-year-old recently featured in the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka, where he scored 135 runs in three innings. Now, since Rahul has no commitments for nearly a month, BCCI officials wanted him to feature in the domestic final, along with Devdutt Padikkal and Mohammed Siraj, who were also part of the Sri Lanka series.

Now, even though Siraj and Padikkal linked up with the group, Rahul is yet to report. With that, his participation looks bleak in the Duleep final. Unless the cricketer decides to fly to Chennai tonight or tomorrow early morning, which looks unlikely at the moment, he is likely to miss the high-voltage clash.

The Duleep Trophy final is now filled with star cricketers. For South, Tilak will lead the side, which also features other international stars such as Padikkal and Siraj. If Rahul joins,



it will further interest the fans. Karun Nair, who was part of the Test squad just last year, is also in the 18-member squad.

East Zone, on the other hand, have a lethal pace unit. Mohammed Shami will lead the attack and will have Mukesh Kumar and Abhijit Sarkar for support. The latter, in the meantime, was incredible in the semi-final against Central Zone. The batting heavily depends on Sooryavanshi, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Ishan Kishan, though.

South Zone: Tilak Varma (c), Ricky Bhui (wk), SK Rasheed, K Sai Teja, T Vijay, Abhinav Tejrana, K Himateja, T Thyagarajan, R Smaran, Karun Nair, Shreyas Gopal, Vidwath Kaverappa, MD Nidheesh, N Jagadeesan, Aman Khan, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Mohammad Siraj.

East Zone: Ishan Kishan (c&wk), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Denish Das, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sudip Kumar Gharami, Shahbaz Ahmed, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Md. Shami, Mukesh Kumar, Kumar Kushagra, Shikhar Mohan, Anukul Roy, Virat Singh, Subhranshu Senapati, Abhijit Sarkar.