The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2024-25 season is slated to start throughout 5 cities on Saturday.
Whereas India’s Take a look at squad is taking up Australia within the Border Gavaskar Trophy, a number of India’s T20I heavyweights will likely be in motion within the home T20 event, on the eve of the IPL 2025 Mega Public sale.
With a number of key Indian limited-overs gamers in motion, the event is definite to draw eyeballs this time. Here’s a take a look at the highest gamers to be careful for in SMAT 2024-25 season:
Baroda: Hardik Pandya
Hardik Pandya’s return to Mumbai Indians as captain suffered quite a lot of backlash final season. Although he couldn’t take MI to the knockouts and has been pipped by teammate Suryakumar Yadav for the T20I captaincy, Hardik redeemed himself throughout India’s victorious T20 World Cup marketing campaign. Hardik has been in free-flowing spirits since, lighting up the T20I circuit with each bat and ball earlier than being unveiled because the top-ranked all-rounder within the format earlier this week. Named within the Baroda squad, Hardik will play beneath his brother Krunal return on his return to the T20 event after eight years.
Bengal- Mohammed Shami
Quite a lot of focus will likely be on Mohammed Shami’s bowling health as he returns to white-ball motion after a yr, shortly after marking a profitable red-ball comeback within the Ranji Trophy final week. Shami starred in a nail-biting win for Bengal, selecting up seven wickets whereas additionally itemizing an enterprising 37 off 36 balls with the bat. Ought to the 34-year-old nail in his overs with tempo and accuracy, Shami could possibly be within the operating to make the flight for Australia earlier than the beginning of the SMAT knockouts.
Gujarat – Axar Patel
Snubbed from the Take a look at group for the Australia sequence, Axar Patel had a restricted position to play in India’s thrilling 3-1 T20I sequence win in South Africa. The bowling all-rounder was instrumental in India’s T20 World Cup win, however has solely performed a handful of video games throughout codecs since. Axar will lead the Gujarat squad as he goals to make an announcement about his all-round prowess.
Kerala- Sanju Samson
After a topsy-turvy South Africa sequence that ended with two a whole bunch and as many geese, Sanju Samson will return to home duties with Kerala in Hyderabad, the venue of his first T20I century towards Bangladesh final month. The Kerala batter has discovered a rejuvenated lease of life on the prime of the order, turning into the primary batter to report three T20I tons in a calendar yr. It is going to be fascinating to see if the Rajasthan Royals skipper will proceed to open in SMAT too.
Haryana – Yuzvendra Chahal
After being snubbed from the T20I set-up earlier than the World Cup earlier this yr, Yuzvendra Chahal could have a degree to show because the IPL Auctions are across the nook too. Chahal was not retained by the Rajasthan Royals regardless of the leggie topping the all-time IPL charts, having the primary participant within the historical past of IPL to take 200 wickets final season.
Maharashtra – Ruturaj Gaikwad
Ruturaj Gaikwad’s stop-start worldwide profession will want one other main push on the home and the IPL stage for the Maharashtra captain to win again a spot throughout codecs. Final seen in India colors throughout the Zimbabwe tour in July, Gaikwad fell out of favour regardless of two helpful knocks within the sequence. Gaikwad additionally led India A on its tour to Australia just lately, however a string of low scores meant he had not executed sufficient to to achieve a back-up opener’s slot. The Chennai Tremendous Kings captain will likely be in focus as he goals to make amends within the home white-ball event over the following two weeks.
Different prime gamers in motion
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