New Delhi: Suresh Raina has been named captain of the India Blue team for the Duleep Trophy, which will be held in Kanpur and Lucknow from September 7 to 29, providing him a platform to make a return to the Indian team.
Raina, who has not played an ODI since October 2015, was ignored for the ongoing limited overs series against Sri Lanka.
The southpaw will get at least two four-day games to make an impact. However, it is unlikely that he will be picked for the upcoming limited overs series against Australia beginning September 17, considering he will be part of the Duleep Trophy.
Another prominent name that will feature in the domestic event is Murali Vijay, who has been trying to recover from the wrist injury he suffered during the Australia Test series earlier this year.
Vijay, who was also ruled out of the Sri Lanka Tests, will turn up for India Green, which will be captained by Parthiv Patel.
Abhinav Mukund, who played the Galle Test against Sri Lanka, will lead India Red.
Duleep Trophy, which was reinstated on the BCCI calendar yesterday following Sourav Ganguly's intervention, will have two matches in Kanpur and two in Lucknow.
The five-day final will be played in the Uttar Pradesh capital from September 25 to 29.
Like last year, the tournament featuring 45 cricketers will be played with the pink ball and under floodlights.
TEAMS
India Red: Abhinav Mukund (captain), Priyank Panchal, Sudip Chatterjee, Ishank Jaggi, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant, Baba Indrajith, K Gowtham, Karna Sharma, Basil Thampi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ashok Dinda, Rahul Singh, CV Milind.
India Green: Murali Vijay, R Samarth, P Chopra, Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair, Ankit Bawne, Parthiv Patel (captain), Shahbaz Nadeem, Parvez Rasool, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Sidharth Kaul, Mayank Dagar, Nitin Saini, Aniket Choudhary.
India Blue: Suresh Raina (captain), Samit Gohel, KS Bharat, AR Easwaran, Manoj Tiwary, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar, Ishan Kishan, Jayant Yadav, Bharghav Bhatt, KM Gandhi, Ishant Sharma, Ankit Rajpoot, S Kamat, Jaydev Unadkat.
