Jammu and Kashmir have six of North Zone’s fifteen, and their keeper is captain
North Zone have made Kanhaiya Wadhawan their Duleep Trophy captain six months after he kept wicket in Jammu and Kashmir’s first Ranji Trophy final. Five of his state team-mates are in the squad with him.
Aug 19, 2026
North Zone have handed the Duleep Trophy captaincy to a wicketkeeper from Jammu, and the reason sits at the top of last season’s Ranji Trophy table. Kanhaiya Wadhawan will lead a fifteen in which six players come from Jammu and Kashmir, the state that won the Ranji Trophy for the first time in February.
Six from the champions
Wadhawan is joined by the opener Qamran Iqbal, the middle-order batter Abdul Samad, the left-arm spinning allrounder Abid Mushtaq and two fast bowlers, Sunil Kumar and Yudhvir Singh. No other association has that many. Delhi have four, with Ayush Badoni as vice-captain alongside Sanat Sangwan, Yash Dhull and Ayush Doseja. Haryana have three in Nishant Sindhu, Anshul Kamboj and Nikhil Kashyap. Punjab have one, and he is Arshdeep Singh. Services have one, Arjun Sharma.
Jammu and Kashmir beat Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy final at Hubballi in February on a first-innings lead of 291, having made 584 and bowled the eight-time champions out for 293. It was the first time in 67 years of trying that they had reached a final at all, and Paras Dogra, who captained them and made 70 in that first innings, is not in this North Zone squad.
Neither is Auqib Nabi, and that omission is a compliment. The fast bowler took 60 wickets last season and was named player of the series, and he is currently in Sri Lanka with India, called into the Test squad as Jasprit Bumrah’s replacement without having played an international.
Wadhawan made 70 in that final too
Wadhawan is 24. He was born in Jammu in September 2001 and made his first-class debut on 30 December 2018, in the 2018-19 Ranji Trophy, which means he has been keeping for his state since he was 17.
His 70 from 109 balls in the final was one of six scores over fifty in an innings of 584, and it ended when KL Rahul took a juggling catch off Shikhar Shetty. Qamran Iqbal, who is in this squad, then made 160 not out in the second innings and Sahil Lotra 101 not out as J&K declared on 342 for 4 and left Karnataka nothing to chase but the clock.
Gill led this side last year and is captaining India this week
Shubman Gill captained North Zone in the 2025-26 Duleep Trophy, though he did not play their quarter-final. He will not be at the Centre of Excellence at all this time, because he is leading India in Sri Lanka. That is the ordinary rhythm of the zonal tournament: it starts when the international side is somewhere else, and the captaincy travels down the list until it reaches somebody who has just won something.
North Zone find out quickly whether the Jammu and Kashmir core holds up. Their quarter-final is against West Zone, captained by Ruturaj Gaikwad, and it begins on Sunday.
Five matches, two grounds, eighteen days
The Duleep Trophy runs from 23 August to 10 September at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, across Grounds 1 and 2. It is a straight knockout of five matches. Central Zone, the holders, and South Zone, who lost last season’s final to them, go directly to the semi-finals. Rajat Patidar captains Central and Tilak Varma captains South.
That leaves two quarter-finals on 23 August. North play West on Ground 1. East Zone, led by Ishan Kishan with the 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi as his deputy, play North East Zone and their captain Jonathan Rongsen on Ground 2. The semi-finals run from 30 August to 2 September, the final from 6 to 10 September.
The other thing happening on 23 August is the second Test between Sri Lanka and India at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. The domestic season and the Test start on the same morning in different countries, and Auqib Nabi is the one man who could plausibly have been at either.