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Rajat Patidar (PC: BCCI) Central Zone have announced a 15-member squad for the upcoming Duleep Trophy 2026/27, with Rajat Patidar set to continue as captain. Under Patidar’s leadership, Central Zone lifted the title last season after defeating South Zone in the final. Rinku Singh has been named vice-captain, while Aryan Juyal and Kunal Singh Rathod have been picked as the two wicket-keepers. The squad also features notable names such as Arshad Khan, Yash Rathod, Harsh Dubey and Saransh Jain. Saransh recently earned his maiden India call-up for the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka. He enjoyed a stellar Duleep Trophy campaign last season and was named Player of the Tournament after scoring 136 runs and claiming 16 wickets, the highest wicket tally of the edition. Left-arm spinner Dubey also played a crucial role, finishing as the joint second-highest wicket-taker with 10 wickets. With the bat, Patidar led from the front, amassing 382 runs in five innings, including a first-inni...

Crishan Kalugamage (PC- REVSPORTZ/Debasis Sen) If stories could choose their own beginnings, this one might open in a pizzeria somewhere in Italy. A boy, his hands occupied with making pizzas, watches the evening crowd drift in as football fills the television screens in the football-mad nation. Somewhere between a pizza oven and a life surrounded by football nerds, Crishan Kalugamage built a life that few would have imagined. He arrived in Italy as a child, carrying memories of Sri Lanka, while the country around him spoke the language of football, even though the game occupying his imagination belonged to another world entirely. For five days a week, he worked making pizzas and, on his day-off, played cricket. It was a small piece of time to protect a dream, but enough for him to keep believing. Years after nurturing that dream, the same belief took him beyond the boundaries he once saw from afar — to international cricket and a World Cup with Italy. In that journey, Roma Cricket C...