Ranji Trophy 2024-25: Virat Kohli was officially named in Delhi's squad for their upcoming match against Railways in the ongoing Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season.

Kohli, who is all set to make his first Ranji Trophy appearance after 2012, reached Delhi and is expected to train with the rest of the squad at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday.

However, the star batter will not be captaining the Delhi team in the match which begins on Thursday, January 30 and will instead be playing under Ayush Badoni's leadership. Meanwhile, wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant, who played the last match against Saurashtra, hasn’t been included in the team.

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Virat had confirmed his availability for Delhi's match against Railways a few days after he missed out on their game against Saurashtra. He had a neck sprain and couldn't make it to their match on January 23 as Delhi suffered a humiliating defeat against Saurashtra.

The 36-year-old was spotted at the Delhi airport during the early hours of Tuesday.

Notably, Virat Kohli's last Ranji Trophy appearance came in November 2012 when Delhi faced Uttar Pradesh in Ghaziabad. He scored 14 runs in the first innings and 43 (65) in the second but Delhi lost by six wickets.

After that, he became a regular player in the national side across formats. With matches being held at regular basis along with the IPL duties, Virat like other big names stopped playing for their states in domestic cricket.

However, the much-awaited return of India's big players including Virat and skipper Rohit Sharma to domestic cricket came after the BCCI had issued guidelines to contracted players following India's 3-1 defeat to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

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Amid ongoing turmoil in India's Test side when it comes to performance and results, BCCI suggested the players to return to domestic cricket for their respective teams whenever they are not on national duty.

 

Delhi Squad: Ayush Badoni (captain), Virat Kohli, Pranav Rajvanshi (wk), Sanat Sangwan, Arpit Rana, Mayank Gusain, Shivam Sharma, Sumit Mathur, Vansh Bedi (wk), Money Grewal, Harsh Tyagi, Siddhant Sharma, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dhull, Gagan Vats, Jonty Sidhu, Himmat Singh, Vaibhav Kandpal, Rahul Gehlot, Jitesh Singh.