Kuldeep Yadav has been named in Uttar Pradesh's (UP) squad for their Ranji Trophy match against Madhya Pradesh (MP) at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore, starting on Thursday.
Kuldeep is making a return after a hernia surgery and hasn't played competitive cricket since October 2024. His last outing for India was the first Test against New Zealand in Bengaluru.
While both UP and MP are out of the knockouts race, the match will give Kuldeep valuable game time and an opportunity to test his fitness ahead of the three-match ODI series against England, which begins on February 6. Kuldeep is in the India squad for that series, and the provisional 15 for the Champions Trophy that follows.
On Monday, he had thanked the NCA staff on social media for their help in his recovery.
Recovery takes a team. Grateful to the NCA and it's team for all the work behind the scenes! pic.twitter.com/dHhwngvpaG
— Kuldeep yadav (@imkuldeep18) January 27, 2025
Apart from Kuldeep, several other India players, including Virat Kohli, KL Raul and Riyan Parag, will also be in action in the last league round of the Ranji Trophy.
Uttar Pradesh squad
Aryan Juyal (capt, wk), Karan Sharma, Abhishek Goswami, Madhav Kaushik, Priyam Garg, Rituraj Sharma, Aaditya Sharma (wk), Shivam Mavi, Saurabh Kumar, Shivam Sharma, Kritagya Kumar Singh, Vijay Kumar, Atal Bihari Rai, Vaibhav Chaudhary, Zeeshan Ansari, Kartikeya Jaiswal, Kartik Tyagi, Kuldeep Yadav