Ayush Badoni to Play Two First-Class Games with 1-Day Break

Captain Ayush Badoni has kept himself free to play Delhi's Round 2 match of the current Ranji Trophy 2025-26 against Himachal, which will commence from October 25 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, even though he was set to report to the India A team for the first Test against South Africa, the commencement of which is slated for October 30 at Bengaluru's Centre of Excellence Ground A. These two matches are going to be four-day contests each. 

This implies that Badoni is likely to play in two First-Class matches with just one day's interval, and that too, he is likely to use for his commute from Delhi to Bengaluru and a potential body recovery after spending four days' match time. But with the rest of India A duty keeping him occupied for another couple of weeks, Badoni will miss the third and even fourth round Ranji matches, starting on November 1 and November 8, respectively. 

Significantly, Badoni had played Delhi's drawn match of the first-round encounter against Hyderabad. Besides scoring a fifty with the bat in the sole inning he featured in, Badoni also impressed with his six-wicket haul, thanks to which, his team took three points on the strength of first-inning's lead against the Tilak Varma-led team in Hyderabad. 

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This environment is likely to interfere with a couple of others in the pool for India A series also, such as Karnataka's Devdutt Padikkal, Vidarbha's Harsh Dubey and Yash Thakur, Madhya Pradesh's Rajat Patidar and Saransh Jain, Mumbai's Tanush Kotian and Ayush Mhatre, Rajasthan's Khaleel Ahmed and Manav Suthar, Tamil Nadu's Sai Sudharsan and N Jagadeesan, and finally Punjab's Gurnoor Brar. 

For the uninitiated, India A assignment is the comeback of Rishabh Pant, following a complete healing from the injury on his right toe.

Vice-captain of the senior team, Pant will be spotted captain versus South Africa A in both matches. The second game in the series will also feature national stars such as KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Dhruv Jurel, Akash Deep, and Prasidh Krishna.