Duleep Trophy 2025: No Rahane or Pujara, this Indian all-rounder becomes the West Zone captain
Shardul Thakur, the Mumbai and India all-rounder was named the captain of the West Zone team for the upcoming Duleep Troohy 2025. Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane could not make to the final squad
Last Updated: 04.05 PM, Aug 01, 2025
The 2025-26 season of the Indian domestic cricket will start with the Duleep Trophy from 28th August to 11th September 2025. With West Zone naming their squad for the Duleep Trophy, a few seniors like Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara were overlooked for selection.
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No Rahane and Pujara
Although Ajinkya Rahane was the captain of the Mumbai team in the last domestic season, he has not been considered in the West Zone squad for the Duleep Trophy 2025. Rahane was last seen in the Lord's Test, where he visited to watch the ongoing Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, and had expressed his hope to play test cricket again for India.
Meantime, Cheteshwar Pujara, the Saurashtra batter, who last played test cricket in 2022, missed out on selection as well. Pujara had scored 402 runs at 40.20 average in 7 games last season in the Ranji Trophy 2024-25.
Shardul Thakur, the captain
All-rounder Shardul Thakur was the best player for Mumbai last season across competitions with valuable contributions with both bat and ball. Most importantly, he performed in crucial times for Mumbai. Thakur was last seen playing in the fourth England vs India test and then missed out on selection in the final test of the series.
Thakur scored 505 runs at an average of 42.08 in Ranji Trophy 2025-25 while taking 35 wickets in 9 matches.
He has been named as the captain of the West Zone side.
Why was Shreyas Iyer not named the captain?
Although Shreyas Iyer has been named in the squad after he cleared his availability for the Duleep Trophy 2025, Iyer was not named the captain of the squad. The reason for that is that with the Asia Cup 2025 scheduled to be played from September 9, Iyer might be picked for the tournament.
Hence, we might see a few names being changed after the squad announcement of the Asia Cup 2025 squad.
West Zone squad for the Duleep Trophy 2025
Shardul Thakur (Capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Aarya Desai, Harvik Desai (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jaymeet Patel, Manan Hingrajia, Saurabh Nawale (wk), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Dharmendra Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Arzan Nagwaswala.
West Zone to play the semi-finals directly
According to Cricbuzz, South Zone and West Zone have been handed direct qualification into the Duleep Trophy 2025 semifinals. Meantime, North Zone will face East Zone in the first quarter-final and Central Zone will meet North-East Zone in the second quarter-final match.