According to recent reports, senior batsman Virat Kohli would not play for Delhi in the forthcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26 match against Railways. This match will be the sixth round of the competition, taking place on Tuesday, January 6 at the KSCA Three Ovals Ground 2 in Alur.
Earlier Rohan Jaitley, President the Delhi and District Cricket Association, has proclaimed that the highest run-scorer will be wearing he Delhi jersey for this match. But, if the latest reports are true the 37-year-old will not be able to make it. While the exact reason is not clear, it was expected that the cricketer would join the Indian side soon for the upcoming one-day international series against New Zealand, during which time he will be unavailable.
Delhi’s captain Rishabh Pant has been named in India’s 15-man squad for the three ODIs, but there are strong signals that the wicketkeeper-batsman will feature in these games before leaving to join up with his national team. They report to the squad on Wednesday ahead of the series opener against New Zealand from January 11.
Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant Set to Rejoin India Squad
The BCCI has made it necessary for centrally contracted players to play at least two domestic competition matches while away from national duty. Kohli does not need to play any more games because he has already been in a few. Pant, meanwhile, has been in all five Delhi matches and will likely play his final one on Tuesday before returning to the Shubman Gill-led team.
Getting back Kohli’s domestic domination, the top-order batsman started off his season with a splendid 100 in the first round to be followed by a fine 77. He was also awarded the Player of the Match for his second round match where he again scored a fifty on a flat batting track. Both of them will also be spotted with the Men in Blue over the course of ODIs.
Squad: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer (vc), KL Rahul (wk), Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh.
