The responsibility of naming six different squads for three different tournaments appears to have taken a toll on the Indian selectors. Otherwise how will explain the selection of a suspended cricketer in one of the Duleep Trophy squads?
In a glaring error, the BCCI named Punjab wicket-keeper batsman Abhishek Gupta in the Indian Red squad for Duleep Trophy even though he is serving a doping ban till September 14.
The Duleep Trophy is scheduled to take place from August 17 to September 8, making it impossible for Gupta to be a part of it. The BCCI is expected to name Gupta’s replacement soon.
In June, Gupta was handed a retrospective eight-month suspension for an "inadvertent" doping violation. The 27-year-old's suspension started from January 15 and will end on September 14.
Gupta had inadvertently ingested a prohibited substance (terbutaline), which can be commonly found in cough syrups, the BCCI had said back in June.
Gupta has played six first-class matches, six List A games and nine T20s.
The selectors met in Kolkata today to pick six different squads - three Duleep Trophy teams, India A four-day squad, India A and India B limited-overs squad for the quadrangular series involving South Africa A and Australia A.
The Duleep Trophy will mark the beginning of First-class calendar which will see a total of 2017 matches – the most – in Indian cricket. Faiz Fazal will captain India Blue, Abhinav Mukund will lead India Red and Parthiv Patel will skipper India Green.
India Blue: Faiz Fazal (Captain), Abhishek Raman, Anmolpreet Singh, Ganesh Satish, N. Gangta, Dhruv Shorey, K.S. Bharat (WK), Akshay Wakhare, Saurav Kumar, Swapnil Singh, Basil Thampi, B Ayappa, Jaydev Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni
India Red: Abhinav Mukund (Captain), R.R. Sanjay, Ashutosh Singh, Baba Aparajith, Writtick Chatterjee, B. Sandeep, Abhishek Gupta (WK), S Nadeem, Mihir Hirwani, Parvez Rasool, R Gurbani, A Mithun, Ishan Porel, Y. Prithvi Raj
India Green: Parthiv Patel (Captain & WK), Prashant Chopra, Priyank Panchal, Sudeep Chatterjee, Gurkeerat Mann, Baba Indrajit, V.P. Solanki, Jajal Saxena, Karn Sharma, Vikas Mishra, K. Vignesh, Ankit Rajpoot, Ashok Dinda, Atith Sheth.