India’s premier domestic tournament, the Ranji Trophy 2016-17 is set to kick off from Thursday, October 6, 2016. In the 2016-17 season, 28 teams will fight for the title at neutral venues from the first round itself for the first time. While there are nine teams each in Group A and Group B, Group C has 10 teams including Chhattisgarh, who will be participating in the prestigious tournament for the first time. Below are the squads announced ahead of the first round of matches. Group A:
Mumbai (first two matches): Aditya Tare (Captain), Abhishek Nayar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shardul Thakur, Suryakumar Yadav, Nikhil Patil (Jr.), Akhil Herwadkar, Jay Bista, Arman Jaffer, Kaustub Pawar, Sufiyan Shaikh, Balwinder Singh Sandhu (Jr.), Tushar Deshpande, Vishal Dabholkar, Vijay Gohil.
Baroda (first two matches): Irfan Pathan (Captain), Deepak Hooda (VC), Yusuf Pathan, Munaf Patel, Hardik Pandya, Kedar Devdhar, Aditya Waghmode, Swapnil Singh, Dhiren Mistry, Krunal Pandya, Pinal Shah - (wk), Gagandeep Singh, Sagar Manglorkar, Vishnu Solanky, Viraj Bhosle (wk). Coach - Martin Jacob, Asst Coach - Sukhbirsingh Manhas
Madhya Pradesh (first two matches): Devendra Bundela (Captain), Naman Ojha (VC) (wk), Mukul Raghav, Aditya Shrivastava, Rajat Patidar, Harpreet Singh, Rameez Singh, Shubham Sharma, Ankit Dane, Ankit Sharma, Mihir Hirwani, Ishwar Pandey, Gaurav Yadav, Ashwin Das, Chandrakant Sakure, Saransh Jain
Uttar Pradesh: Suresh Raina (Captain), Eklavya Dwivedi (VC), Almas Saukat, Umang Sharma, Samarth Singh, Md. Saif, Sarfaraz Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ankit Rajput, Imitiaz Ahmed, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Israr Azim Khan, Saurabh Kumar, Deependra Pandey, Amit Mishra, Tanmay Srivastava. Stand By: Prashant Gupta, Rinku Singh, Akshdeep Nath, Deepak Kumar, Shivam Chaudhary, Shubham Choubey
Railways: Karn Sharma (Captain), Saurav Wakaskar, Mrunal Deodhar, Shiva Kant Shukla, V. Cheluraj, Arindam Ghosh, Nikhil Doru, Mahesh Rawat, Ashish Yadav, Anureet Singh, Avinesh Yadav, Manjeet Chaudhary, Deepak Bansal, Ranjeet Mali, Akshet Pandey, Gaurav Khatri.
Tamil Nadu (first two matches): Abhinav Mukund(Captain),B Aparajith (VC), B Indrajith, MS Washington Sundar, N Jagadeesan,Dinesh Karthik, J Kousik, L Suryap Prakash, Rahil S Shah, Malolan Rangarajan, R Aushik Srinivas, A Aswin Crist, M. Mohammed, K Vignesh, T Natarajan, M Kaushik Gandhi.
Punjab: (for first match): Yuvraj Singh (Captain), Arpit Singh Pannu, Jeevanjot Singh, Manan Vohra, Uday Kaul, Mandeep Singh, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Gitansh Khera (wk), Vinay Chaudhary, Siddharth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma, Manpreet Singh Grewal, Mayank Sidana, Rajwinder Singh, Subek Gill
Gujarat (first match): Parthiv Patel (Captain), Priyank Panchal, Samit Gohil, Bhargav Merai, Rujul Bhatt, Manpreet Juneja, Chirag Gandhi, Axar Patel, Karan Patel, Rush Kalaria, Jasprit Bumrah, RP Singh, Mehul Patel, Hardik Patel, Dhruv Raval
Group B:Saurashtra (first three matches): Jaydev Shah (Captain),Sheldon Jackson, Avi Barot, Cheteshwar Pujara, Chirag Jani, Jaydev Unadkat, Shaurya Sanandiya, Dharmendra Jadeja, Vandit Jivrajani, Arpit Vasavada, Dipak Punia, Samarth Vyas, Hardik Rathod, Sagar Jogyani, Kushang Patel, Amitoze Singh, Mohsin Dodiya, Sunil Yadav
Delhi: Virat Kohli – Captain, Gautam Gambhir - Vice Captain for entire season (first two matches): Unmukt Chand (Captain), Vaibhav Rawal, Milind Kumar, Nitish Rana, Manan Sharma, Dhruv Shorey, Rishab Pant (wk), Mohit Sharma, Pulkit Narang, Varun Sood, Parwinder Awana, Navdeep Saini, Pradeep Sangwan, Pawan Suyal, Vikas Tokas.
In the absence of Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir, Unmkut Chand has been named captain for the firs two games.
Team Rajasthan: Pankaj Singh (Captain), Manendra Singh, Vineet Saxena, Pranay Sharma, Ashok Menaria, Rajat Bhatia, Chetan Bisht, Mahipal Lomror, Aniket Choudhary, Tanveer Ul-haq, Nathu Singh, Ajay Kookna, Sidhanth Dobal, Puneet Yadav, Rajesh Bishnoi (Jr.)
Vidarbha (first match): Faiz Fazal (Captain), Ganesh Sathish (VC), R Sanjay , Aditya Shanware, Shalabh Shrivastava ,Ravi Jangid, Aditya Sarvate , Jitesh Sharma, Akshay Wakhare , Akshay Kolhar, Akshay Karnewar, Shrikant Wagh , Ravi Thakur , Rajneesh Gurbani, Lalit Yadav.
Maharashtra (ahead of first match): Kedar Jadhav (Captain), Harshad Khadiwale, Swapnil Gugale, Rahul Tripathi, Ankeet Bawane, Naushad Shaikh, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Vishant More (wk), Chirag Khurana, Satyajit Bachhav, Shrikant Mundhe, Domnic Muthuswami, Anupam Sanklecha, Shubham Kothari, Murtaza Trunkwala
Assam (first two matches): Gokul Sharma (Captain), KB Arun Karthick (VC), Amit Verma, Syed Mohammed, Pallav Kr. Das, Rahul Hazarika, Sarupam Purkayastha, Krishna Das, Arup Das, Dhiraj Goswami, Sibsankar Roy, Tarjinder Singh, Rishav Das, Kunal Saikia (wk), Abu Nechim Ahmed
Jharkhand: Varun Aaron (Captain), Saurabh Tiwary (VC), Ishan Kishan (wk), SP Gautam, Virat Singh, Ishank Jaggi, Anand Singh, Kaushal Singh, Pratyush Singh, Ajay Yadav,Vikash Singh, Shahbaz Nadeem, Samar Quadri, Sunny Gupta, Ashish Kumar
Group C:
Goa: Sagun Kamat(Captain), Swapnil Asnodkar, Shadab Jakati, Keenan Vaz(wk), Ruturaj Singh, Harshad Gadekar, Snehal Kauthankar, Amulya Pandhrekar, Saurabh Bandekar, Samar Dubhashi, Amogh Desai, Darshan Mishal, Amit Yadav & Felix Alemao.
Kerala (first two matches): Rohan Prem (Captain), Sachin Baby (VC), V A Jagadeesh, Bhavin Thakkar, Jalaj Saxena , Sanju Viswanadh, Monish K, Iqbal Abdulla, Nikhilesh Surendran, Sandeep S Warrier, Basil Thampy, Manu Krishnan, Robert Fernandez, Nidheesh M D, Vinod Kumar.
Andhra: Hanuma Vihar (Captain), K.S. Bharat ( Vice Captain), D.B. Prasanth Kumar, MUB Sriram, K. Sreekanth, A.G. Pradeep, D.B. Ravi Teja, K. Aswin Hebbar, Ch. Stephen, D. Siva Kumar, I. Karthik Raman, B. Ayyappa, P. Vijay Kumar, T. Vamsi Krishna, Siddarth, Bhargav Bhat. Stand by: T.K. Ganesh Kumar, H. Shiva Raj, K.V. Sasikanth, M.Ajay Kumar, S.H. Srinivas, G. Chiranjeevi.
Chhattisgarh: Mohammad Kaif (Captain), Abhimanyu Singh Chauhan, Abhuday Kant Singh, Ajay Mandal, Amandeep Khare, Ashutosh Singh, Manoj Singh, P Vivek, Pankaj Rao, Pratik Raj Sinha, Rishabh Tiwari, Sahil Gupta, Shakeeb Ahmed, Shivendra Singh, Sumit Ruikar, Abhishek Tamrakar. Stand by - Avinash Singh Dhaliwal, Vishal Kushwah, Shourabh Kharwar.
Services: Soumik Chatterjee (Captain), Ravi Chauhan, Raushan Raj, Khalid Ahmad, Vikas Singh Hathwala, Vikas Yadav, Rajbahadur Pal, Anshul Gupta, Poonam Poonia, Shamsher Yadav, Nakul Sharma(wk), Nakul Verma (wk), G Rahul Singh, Azaruddin Bloch, Diwesh Pathania, Rajat Paliwal
Hyderabad: S Badrinath (Captain), P Akshath Reddy, Tanmay Agarwal, B Sandeep, B Anirudh, K Sumanth (wk), Benjamin C Thomas, Himalay Agarwal, Mehdi Hasan, Akash Bhandari, Vishal Sharma, C V Milind, M Ravi Kiran, Mohd. Siraj, Md. Muddassir, Habeeb Ahmed (wk).
Himachal: Rishi Dhawan (Captain), Kanwar Abhinay, Paras Dogra, Pankaj Jaswal, Shreshth Nirmohi, Robin Bist, Bipul Sharma, Nikhil Gangta, Sumeet Verma, Akshay Chauhan, Mayank Dagar, Gurvinder Singh, Prashant Chopra, Ankush Bains, Amit Kumar
Haryana: Mohit Sharma (Captain),Rajat Palliwal (vice captain),Nitin Saini (wk, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Himanshu Rana, Rohit Sharma (wk), Mohit Hooda, Joginder Sharma, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ashok Sandhu, Virender Dahiya, Shivam Chauhan, Ashish Hooda, Shubham Rohila, Sanjay Pahal, Jayant Yadav
Tripura (first three matches): Manisankar Mura Singh (Captain), Nirupam Sen Chowdhury (VC), Bishal Ghosh, Smit Patel (wk), Yashpal Singh, Gurinder Singh, Udiyan Bose, Rajat Dey, Abhijit Dey, Aniruddha Saha, Rana Datta,Ajoy Sarkar, Avijit Sarkar, Banti Roy, Chiranjit Paul
Jammu & Kashmir: Mithun Manhas(Captain),Parvez Rasool(VC),Ian Dev Singh Chauhan, Bandeep Singh, Adil Reshi, Shubham Khajuria, Puneet Bisht, Umar Nazir, Ramdayal Punia, Amir Aziz, Mohsin Mufti, Pranav Gupta, Samiullah Beigh, Rohit Sharma, Zahoor Sofi, Amir Sofi
