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Days ahead of the Duleep Trophy 2025 semifinal, South Zone have been dealt a huge blow. The South Zone captain Tilak Varma and left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore have been ruled out of the clash against North Zone. Varma is bound for T20 Asia Cup 2025 and will not take part in the semifinal whereas Kishore picked up an injury.
Kishore recently played in the Buchi Babu invitational tournament. On the other hand, Varma represented Hampshire in the County Championship and One-Day domestic tournament.
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Tilak Varma and Sai Kishore’s replacement
As per Cricbuzz, Andhra Pradesh’s Shaik Rasheed and Puducherry’s Ankit Sharma have been named as their replacements.
20-year-old Rasheed has played 19 first-class games and scored 1,204 runs at an average of 37.62, including two centuries and seven half-centuries. The handy leg-spinner has only one wicket at the first-class level.
34-year-old Ankit is a left-arm spinner. He has 168 wickets from 68 first-class games at an average of 39.75, including nine five-wicket hauls. With the bat, he has 2,158 runs at an average of 29.56, including one century and 12 fifties.
Who will lead South Zone in semifinal?
In Varma's absence, Kerala batter Mohammed Azharuddeen has been named South Zone's captain. Also, Tamil Nadu wicketkeeper-batter Narayan Jagadeesan who was called in as Rishabh Pant's injury replacement on England tour has been named Azharuddeen's deputy.
The semifinal against North Zone will commence on September 4.
South Zone’s updated squad for semifinal
Mohammed Azharuddeen (c), Tanmay Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Mohit Kale, Salman Nizar, Narayan Jagadeesan (wk), Tripurana Vijay, Tanay Thyagarajan, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Nidheesh MD, Ricky Bhui, Basil NP, Gurjapneet Singh, Snehal Kauthankar, Ankit Sharma, Shaikh Rasheed.
Standbys: Mohit Redkar, R. Smaran, Edhen Apple Tom, Andre Siddarth.
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