Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2024-25: From Hardik, Shami to Samson, Ruturaj – top players in action

With respective cardinal Indian limited-overs players successful action, the tourney is definite to pull eyeballs this time. Here is simply a look astatine the apical players to ticker retired for successful SMAT 2024-25 season:

Baroda: Hardik Pandya

Hardik Pandya’s instrumentality to Mumbai Indians arsenic skipper suffered a batch of backlash past season. Though helium could not instrumentality MI to the knockouts and has been pipped by teammate Suryakumar Yadav for the T20I captain, Hardik redeemed himself during India’s victorious T20 World Cup campaign. Hardik has been successful free-flowing spirits since, lighting up the T20I circuit with some bat and shot earlier being unveiled arsenic the top-ranked all-rounder successful the format earlier this week.

Hardik, named successful the Baroda squad, volition play nether his member Krunal instrumentality connected his instrumentality to the T20 tourney aft 8 years.

Bengal- Mohammed Shami

A batch of absorption volition beryllium connected Mohammed Shami’s bowling fittingness arsenic helium returns to white-ball enactment aft a year, soon aft marking a palmy red-ball comeback successful the Ranji Trophy past week. Shami starred successful a nail-biting triumph for Bengal, picking up 7 wickets portion besides listing an enterprising 37 disconnected 36 balls with the bat. Should the 34-year-old nail successful his overs with gait and accuracy, Shami could beryllium successful the moving to marque the formation for Australia earlier the commencement of the SMAT knockouts.

Gujarat – Axar Patel

Snubbed from the Test squad for the Australia series, Axar Patel had a constricted relation to play successful India’s thrilling 3-1 T20I bid triumph successful South Africa. The bowling all-rounder was instrumental successful India’s T20 World Cup win, but has lone played a fistful of games crossed formats since. Axar volition pb the Gujarat squad arsenic helium aims to marque a connection astir his all-round prowess.

Kerala- Sanju Samson

After a topsy-turvy South Africa bid that ended with 2 hundreds and arsenic galore ducks, Sanju Samson volition instrumentality to home duties with Kerala successful Hyderabad, the venue of his archetypal T20I period against Bangladesh past month. The Kerala batter has recovered a rejuvenated lease of beingness astatine the apical of the order, becoming the archetypal batter to grounds 3 T20I tons successful a calendar year. It volition beryllium absorbing to spot if the Rajasthan Royals skipper volition proceed to unfastened successful SMAT too.

Haryana – Yuzvendra Chahal

After being snubbed from the T20I set-up earlier the World Cup earlier this year, Yuzvendra Chahal volition person a constituent to beryllium arsenic the IPL Auctions are astir the country too. Chahal was not retained by the Rajasthan Royals contempt the leggie topping the all-time IPL charts, having the archetypal subordinate successful the past of IPL to instrumentality 200 wickets past season.

Maharashtra – Ruturaj Gaikwad

Ruturaj Gaikwad’s stop-start planetary vocation volition request different large propulsion astatine the home and the IPL level for the Maharashtra skipper to triumph backmost a spot crossed formats. Last seen successful India colours during the Zimbabwe circuit successful July, Gaikwad fell retired of favour contempt 2 useful knocks successful the series. Gaikwad besides led India A connected its circuit to Australia recently, but a drawstring of debased scores meant helium had not done capable to to summation a back-up opener’s slot. The Chennai Super Kings skipper volition beryllium successful absorption arsenic helium aims to marque amends successful the home white-ball tourney implicit the adjacent 2 weeks.

Other apical players successful action

Jharkhand – Ishan Kishan
Mumbai- Shreyas Iyer (c), Shardul Thakur, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane
Uttar Pradesh- Bhuvneshwar Kumar (c), Rinku Singh, Nitish Rana
Punjab – Abhishek Sharma (c), Arshdeep Singh
Hyderabad – Tilak Varma (c)
Madhya Pradesh – Rajat Patidar (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan
Tamil Nadu – Shahrukh Khan (c), Sai Kishore
Karnataka – Mayank Agarwal (c), Manish Pandey
Vidarbha – Jitesh Sharma (c), Umesh Yadav
Rajasthan – Deepak Hooda, Deepak Chahar
Delhi – Ishant Sharma
Baroda – Krunal Pandya