On Thursday, July 25, the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) appointed Ruturaj Gaikwad as the captain for the upcoming Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season. The MCA also unveiled a 28-member probable squad for the premier red-ball tournament, which will kick-start on October 11, 2024, while the final is set to go down from February 26 to March 2, 2025.
While Ruturaj Gaikwad has been given the leadership role, Sulkshan Kulkarni will coach the Maharashtra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season. In the premier red-ball tournament, Maharashtra are drawn in the Elite Group A, Mumbai, Baroda, Jammu & Kashmir, Odisha, Services, Meghalaya, and Tripura.
In the opening match of the Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season, Maharashtra will be taking on Jammu & Kashmir in their opening game at the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar.
Notably, the reason for appointing Ruturaj Gaikwad as the Maharashtra captain could be related to the below-par performances of the team in the last few Ranji Trophy seasons. Ankeet Bawne was leading the state in the previous four seasons of the tournament, failing to reach the knockout stage on three occasions.
Here is Maharashtra’s probable squad for Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season:
Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Saurabh Navale, Ankeet Bawane, Nikhil Naik, Mandar Bhandari, Hitesh Walunj, Vicky Ostwal, Siddhesh Veer, Sachin Dhas, Harshal Kate, Yash Kshirsagar, Arshin Kulkarni, Rahul Tripathi, Digvijay Patil, Azim Kazi, Siddharth Mhatre, Mehul Patel, Satyajeet Bachhav, Taranjitsingh Dhillon, Prashant Solanki, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ramkrishna Ghosh, Mukesh Choudhary, Pradeep Dadhe, Manoj Ingale, Rajneesh Gurbani, Murtaza Trunkwala, Vaibhav Gosavi