Right-handed batsman Amandeep Khare, born in Durg, Madhya Pradesh, has been announced as the new captain of the Chhattisgarh team for the upcoming 2024 season of India’s top-tier domestic first-class tournament, the Ranji Trophy.
Amandeep Khare has been named Captain of a Ranji team for the first time in his career and the 26-year-old is hoping to start his Captain career in style with the new season starting from January 5.
Chhattisgarh in their opening match will take on Assam, most likely at their home stadium in Raipur, the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium. Amandeep Khare will become the first cricketer from the Chhattisgarh region to play in the U-19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh.
Chhattisgarh will play 4 home league matches and 3 away matches in a round-robin format starting January 5. They are among those teams that have never reached the final of the Ranji Trophy.
But with a new captain, the state team hopes to at least reach the final stages of the tournament, as they would like to play in the final this year. Last year they finished in 5th place with 19 points from 7 matches, including 3 wins and 4 losses in the Elite C group.
This year, they were placed in Group B along with some strong teams like Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh. Chhattisgarh will take on Bihar in their second Ranji Trophy match and will also travel to Bengal in the next match.
The Chhattisgarh State Cricket Sangh in an official press release revealed its new captain, Amandeep Khare, the matches and the complete 17-man squad for the 2024 Ranji Trophy edition. Last season (2023-24), Saurashtra won and beat Bengal in the final to win the first class trophy for the second time in 3 seasons.
Jaydev Unadkat’s team, after winning the toss, elected to bowl first and Bengal scored only 174 in the first innings. Saurashtra, in reply, scored 404 runs and bowled out Bengal for 241 runs to concede a target of just 14 runs.
Saurashtra chased down the total in the first session of Day 4 to claim a one-sided victory over Manoj Tiwary’s Bengal at the iconic Eden Gardens.
With over 2000 runs in first-class cricket, Amandeep Khare looks set for Chhattisgarh captaincy
Batsman Amandeep Khare, 26, will lead a young but experienced Chhattisgarh team. Most of the onus will fall on Amandeep as a batsman who has scored 2823 runs in 42 Ranji matches at an average of 45.53. His highest score is 210 and he has 10 centuries and 8 half-centuries to his name since he debuted in October 2016.
Chhattisgarh Team: Ajay Mandal, Anuj Tiwari, Ashish Singh Chouhan, Ashutosh Singh, Eknath Kelkar (WK), Gagandeep Singh, Jivesh Butte, M Ravi Kiran, Rishabh Tiwari, Sanjeet Desai, Shashank Chandrakar (WK), Shashank Singh (VC) . Amandeep Khare (C), Shubham Singh, Saurabh Majumdar, Sumit Ruikar and Vasudev Bareth.