- The BCCI announced that the Indian domestic season would kick off with the Duleep Trophy.
- The Duleep Trophy is named after the legendary Duleepsinhji.
- The Duleep Trophy will be played among six teams in a knockout format.
The BCCI today announced that the Indian domestic season would kick off with the prestigious Duleep Trophy, starting August 23.
The Duleep Trophy is a domestic Indian tournament that is named after legendary Indian international cricketer who represented England, Duleepsinhji.
The competition is one of two prestigious first-class tournaments in India, alongside the Ranji Trophy. The competition is generally an inter-zonal one, currently featuring six teams – North Zone, East Zone, West Zone, South Zone, Central Zone and North East Zone.
Duleep Trophy Format
The Duleep Trophy has mostly recently been a knockout competition, with two teams receiving a bye into the semi-final. The other four teams would have to first play the quarter-finals before making it to the final.
In 2025, the Central Zone got past the North East, West and South Zones, all via first innings lead, to win the title. It was Central Zone’s seventh title.
However, the Duleep Trophy has deviated from this format in the past. The 2024 edition featured teams representing India A, India B, India C and India D.India A won the title in a round-robin format tournament.
The tournament used a round-robin format between the five zones in 2001 and 2002 with no North East Zone involvement. Organisers then split the teams in 2003 according to the groups they competed in during that season’s Ranji Trophy.
Team Composition
Players from state teams within each region represent the different zones. The table below shows how the state teams divide across the different zones.
| Central Zone | East Zone | North East Zone | North Zone | South Zone | West Zone |
| Chattisgarh | Assam | Arunachal Pradesh | Chandigarh | Andhra Pradesh | Baroda |
| Madhya Pradesh | Bihar | Manipur | Delhi | Goa | Gujarat |
| Railways | Bengal | Meghalaya | Haryana | Hyderabad | Maharashtra |
| Rajasthan | Jharkhand | Mizoram | Himachal Pradesh | Karnataka | Mumbai |
| Uttarakhand | Odisha | Nagaland | Jammu & Kashmir | Kerala | Saurashtra |
| Uttar Pradesh | Tripura | Sikkim | Punjab | Pondicherry | |
| Vidarbha | Services | Tamil Nadu |
Best Performers
With 19 trophies to their name, West Zone are the most successful team in the tournament. North Zone are next with 12 titles. West and North Zone also have the most final appearances in the competition, with 33 and 26 wins respectively.
Among batters, Waseem Jaffer holds the record for most runs in the competition with 2545 runs. Raman Lamba has the highest individual score in the tournament – 320 vs West Zone in 1987-88. Lamba has also scored the most runs in a single edition of the competition with 659 runs in 1987-88. Anshuman Gaekwad of the West Zone has the most centuries with nine.
Among the bowlers, Narendra Hirwani has the most wickets in the competition with 126 wickets to his name. East Zone pacer picked up 10/46 against South Zone in January 2001, to become the first player to take 10 wickets in an innings in the Duleep Trophy.
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