(MENAFN- IANS) New Delhi, Nov 21 (IANS) India opener Ruturaj Gaikwad has been named Maharashtra's captain for the 2025/26 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy starting on November 26, said the Maharashtra Cricket Association announced on Friday.

Gaikwad heads into the tournament on the back of strong form for India A in their 50-over series in Rajkot, where he amassed 210 runs, including a century. Maharashtra will play its group‐stage fixtures at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, and will start their campaign against Jammu and Kashmir on November 26.

Apart from J&K, Maharashtra will also face off against Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Hyderabad, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Chandigarh in their Elite Group B league matches. Meanwhile, Shubham Khajuria has been named captain of the J&K team.

The squad includes fast bowler Umran Malik and hard‐hitting batter Abdul Samad, both of whom bring valuable experience to the side whose fortunes in the Ranji Trophy have been on a high. For their white-ball games, they will have the services of their guest player leg-spinner Murugan Ashwin, who previously played for Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh.

Previously, Jharkhand named wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan as their captain for the tournament, where they are slotted in Elite Group D, alongside Delhi, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Saurashtra, and Tripura in Ahmedabad.

Karnataka, meanwhile, have named Mayank Agarwal as their captain, with availability of Devdutt Padikkal, Prasidh Krishna and KL Rahul depending on their selection for the ongoing multi-format series against South Africa.

Maharashtra squad: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Prithvi Shaw, Arshin Kulkarni, Rahul Tripathi, Azim Kazi, Nikhil Naik (WK), Ramakrishna Ghosh, Vicky Ostwal, Tanay Sanghvi, Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Solanki, Mandar Bhandari (WK), Jalaj Saxena, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Yogesh Dongare, Ranjit Nikam

Jammu & Kashmir squad: Qamran Iqbal, Shubham Khajuria (c), Vivrant Sharma, Musaif Aijaz, Abdul Samad, Yawer Hassan, Kanhaiya Wadhawan (vc), Abid Mushtaq, Vanshaj Sharma, Ashwin Murugan, Yudhvir Singh, Auqib Nabi, Umran Malik, Nasir Lone, and Sunil Kumar

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