The first-round fixtures of the Duleep Trophy time kicked off as India A, captained by Shubman Gill began their campaign against India B captained by Abhimanyu Easwaran, at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, on Thursday.
Both teams boast big names with KL Rahul, Kuldeep Yadav and Gill himself comprising India A, while India B have Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant among their ranks.
While players from both squads will vie to gain national selectors' attention with a busy Test season on the horizon, there was no dearth of support for local boy KL Rahul.
A self-proclaimed KL Rahul fan, Juman Sarma posted a picture on his X handle and captioned it: 'A group of fans led by Suhas bhai supporting local hero KL Rahul at Chinnaswamy Stadium.'
Earlier this year, Rahul played just the opening Test against England after which he was ruled out of the remaining four Tests with a quadricep tendon injury and will be looking to make a comeback in the Indian Test set-up with the two-match Test series against Bangladesh, starting September 19.
Pant, who is playing for Team B told Jio Cinema he was looking forward to getting back into domestic cricket as this is his first red-ball game after his accident in December 2022.
“It is an amazing feeling for me, also because when I met with the accident two years ago, I used to always think about when I will be able to play for India again,” he said.
"In the last six months I (have) played IPL and we (have) also won the World Cup. It's a great feeling as I had always dreamt of winning the World Cup since I was a kid.”
