2016-17 Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament: Squads

The 2016-17 Inter-zonal T20 tournament for the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy is set to get underway in Mumbai on February 12. All the Zonal selectors have already announced their respective squads for the tournament that features all the five Zones in Indian cricket, South, North, East, Central and West.

North Zone are the strongest on paper as they have as many as 11 cricketers who have represented India. Led by Harbhajan Singh, the squad also features out-of-favour Indian openers Shikhar Dhawan and Gautam Gambhir. These names are followed by members of the Indian T20I side that took on England viz. Yuvraj Singh, Mandeep Singh, Ashish Nehra, Rishabh Pant, Parvez Rasool and Yuzvendra Chahal etc.

They have also announced Unmukt Chand as a backup wicket-keeper as Rishabh Pant won’t be available for a few matches as he is set to take part in the warm-up match against Australia A from February 18.

Karnataka skipper R Vinay Kumar has been named the captain of a strong South Zone squad that has th right combination of youth and experience. Kerala duo of Vishnu Vinod and Basil Thampi were rewarded for their performances in the South Zone T20 tournament that was won by Karnataka.

Vijay Shankar has been named the vice-captain of the team that has as many as five players from his state team, Tamil Nadu.

Rohit Sharma, who is recovering from a thigh injury, was not included in the West Zone side for the tournament. The Parthiv Patel-led team features the members of the Indian ODI side that won the three-match series against England. Jasprit Bumrah and Kedar Jadhav make the squad for the West Zone apart from discarded all-rounder Irfan Pathan, exciting youngster Deepak Hooda.

Indian T20I batsman Suresh Raina has been appointed as the captain of the Central Zone that features India discards Naman Ojha, Karn Sharma and Ambati Rayudu. Exciting middle-order batsman Sarfaraz Khan fails to make it to the squad and was named in the stand-by list.

Squads

East Zone:

Squad: Manoj Tiwary (C), Saurabh Tiwary, Abhijit Sarkar, Shahbaz Nadeem, Ishan Kishan, Shreevats Goswami, Ishank Jaggi, Virat Singh, KB Arun Karthik, Writtick Chatterjee, Amit Verma, Ashok Dinda, Pritam Das, Sayan Ghosh, Biplab Samantray and Dhiraj Singh.

South Zone:

Squad: R Vinay Kumar (C), Vijay Shankar, Tanmay Agarwal, Mayank Agarwal, Vishnu Vinod, Ricky Bhui, Dinesh Karthik, G Hanuma Vihari, Pavan Deshpande, Rahil Shah, M Ashwin, D Swaroop Kumar, VC Milind, Basil Thampi, Sandeep Warrier, Aravind Sreenath.

West Zone:

Squad: Parthiv Patel (C), Aditya Tare, Shreyas Iyer, Kedar Jadhav, Ankit Bawne, Abhishek Nayar, Irfan Pathan, Rujul Bhatt, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishwar Chaudhary, Pravin Tambe, Deepak Hooda, Priyank Panchal, Jagdish Zope

North Zone:

Squad: Harbhajan Singh (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Mandeep Singh, Rishabh Pant/Unmukt Chand, AR Pachera, Rishi Dhawan, Mayank Dagar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Parvez Rasool, Umar Nazir, Pradeep Sangwan, Mohit Sharma, Ashish Nehra.

Central Zone:

Squad: Suresh Raina (C), Naman Ojha, Ambati Rayudu, Mahesh Rawat, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Karn Sharma, Akshdeep Nath, Amandeep Khare, Ankit Rajpoot, Aniket Choudhary, Amit Mishra, Sohraab Dhaliwal, Mahipal Lomror, Shubham Agarwal, Apoorv Wankhade .