[WATCH] Suryakumar Yadav prepares for red-ball challenge ahead of Duleep Trophy clash

Suryakumar Yadav has kickstarted his preparations for the upcoming Duleep Trophy semi-final game at the Alur Cricket Ground in Bengaluru from Wednesday, July 5, onwards. The Team India batter will be seen plying trade for the West Zone, who will lock horns with Central Zone for a place in the final.

Suryakumar was last seen in action during IPL 2023. He had a bleak start to the competition but soon stormed back to form. The Mumbai Indians (MI) star finished as the sixth-highest run-scorer of the edition with 605 runs in 16 matches at a strike rate of 181.13, including one century and five fifties.

He was part of India's squad for the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia in England but warmed the benches. After a few days' break, Suryakumar Yadav has returned to training and recently shared a clip from his practice session.

"Time for 🔴 ball challenge 🔥," he captioned the post.

While Suryakumar is mainly known for his aggressive batting, he also boasts decent records in red-ball cricket. The Mumbai-born cricketer has scored 5557 runs in 80 first-class games at an average of 44.45, including 14 centuries and 28 fifties.

Suryakumar Yadav will look to make the most of the opportunity against Central Zone, who defeated East Zone in the quarter-finals to book a berth in the top four.

A good couple of knocks in the Duleep Trophy will boost his Test aspirations, which had a sedate start earlier this year. The right-handed batter could only manage eight runs in the only Test he has played so far, which came against Australia in Nagpur.

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West Zone and Central Zone squads

West Zone: Priyank Panchal (c), Cheteshwar Pujara, Suryakumar Yadav, Harvik Desai (wk), Prithvi Shaw, Het Patel (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Arpit Vasavada, Atit Seth, Shams Mulani, Yuvraj Dodiya, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Chetan Sakariya, Chintan Gaja, and Arzan Nagwaswalla.

Central Zone: Shivam Mavi (c), Upendra Yadav (vc & wk), Vivek Singh, Himanshu Mantri, Kunal Chandela, Shubham Sharma, Amandeep Khare, Rinku Singh, Akshay Wadkar, Dhruv Jurel, Saurabh Kumar, Manav Suthar, Saransh Jain, Avesh Khan, and Yash Thakur.