Duleep Trophy 2023: Nehal Wadhera replaces injured Mandeep Singh, new North Zone captain named

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Mandeep Singh has been ruled out of the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2023 due to an injury and will be replaced by his Punjab teammate Nehal Wadhera in North Zone squad. In the absence of Mandeep, who was also appointed North Zone captain, Jayant Yadav will lead the team.

“We received intimation this morning from the Punjab Cricket Association that Mr. Mandeep Singh had gotten injured and would be unavailable for the Duleep Trophy. Pursuant thereto a video-conference was organised this evening with all the selectors of the North Zone Selection Committee and the same was chaired by Mr. Chetan Sharma.

"Selectors discussed the issue and unanimously decided that Nehal Wadhera would be the replacement for Mr. Mandeep Singh,” a media release stated.

Nehal, the 22-year-old top-order batter, was initially in the eight-member stand-by list named after the June 15 meeting. He made his first-class debut In the 2022-23 Ranji Trophy season. The southpaw scored 376 runs including two hundreds in the five matches at an average of 53.71.

He continued the good run in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) where he scored 244 runs in 14 matches at an average of 26.77 and a strike rate of 145.18.

“Since Mandeep Singh was the Captain of the side, the Committee also picked Jayant Yadav to lead the North Zone team in the Duleep trophy,” added the media release.

The Duleep Trophy gets underway in Bengaluru from June 28 as North Zone will play their first fixture against Northeast Zone at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. On the same day, Central Zone will take on East Zone in Alur.

North Zone Squad for Duleep Trophy 2023: Jayant Yadav (c), Prashant Chopra, Dhruv Shorey, Manan Vohra, Prabhsimran Singh, Ankit Kumar, AS Kalsi, Harshit Rana, Abid Mushtaq, Nehal Wadhera, Pulkit Narang, Nishant Sandhu, Sidharth Kaul, Vaibhav Arora, Baltej Singh.