 "38 teams… 135 matches, Suryakumar Yadav will be with captain Shreyas Iyer, now the real fun will come – News-Patiala Punjabi")
New Delhi- The new season of India’s domestic one-day cricket tournament Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024 is starting from Saturday (December 21). A total of 38 teams are participating in the tournament this time. A total of 135 matches including the final will be played. The matches of the tournament will be played at 20 different places in the country. The Mumbai team, captained by Shreyas Iyer, who recently won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, will face Karnataka in their first match.
In this match, star players like Suryakumar Yadav and Shivam Dubey will be seen along with Shreyas. However, senior batsman Ajinkya Rahane will not play in this tournament. Rahane had performed brilliantly with the bat in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He was the highest run scorer. He sought leave from MCA due to which he was not selected in Vijay Hazare’s team. The final of the tournament will be played on 18 January 2025. The Champions Trophy is to be held next year. The Indian selectors are going to monitor the performance of the players in this tournament.
Vadodara will host the knockout matches. The knockout matches will be played from 9 January 2025. The teams are divided into 5 groups, three groups have 8 teams while two groups have seven teams. The top 10 teams after seven league rounds will qualify for the knockouts. Group A has teams from Jharkhand, Odisha, Goa, Assam, Haryana, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Gujarat, while Group B has teams from Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Maharashtra, Services, Himachal Pradesh and Railways. Teams from Karnataka, Nagaland, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Saurashtra, Punjab, Puducherry and Arunachal Pradesh have been placed in Group C, while Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Vidarbha, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir have been placed in Group D. . Bihar, Bengal, Kerala, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Baroda have got Group E.
Prithvi-Sanju and Manish Pandey will not be seen
Star players like Prithvi Shaw, Sanju Samson and Manish Pandey will not be seen in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Prithvi took part in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy but his performance was unremarkable, he was dropped from the squad for the Vijay Hazare Trophy, while Sanju Samson and Manish Pandey also failed to impress with the bat.
Rahane scored 469 runs in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy
Experienced batsman Ajinkya Rahane scored 469 runs at a strike rate of 165 in 8 matches in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Meanwhile, their innings were 13, 52, 68, 22, 95, 84, 98 and 37 runs respectively. During this time he scored five fifties. Ajinkya Rahane had sought a few days break from the Mumbai Cricket Association due to personal reasons.