As India brace themselves for a red-ball reboot after a long stretch of short-form cricket, the 2024 Duleep Trophy offers just the launch pad to the run of 10 Test matches over the next four and a half months. The first round of action, starting on September 5, will see the cream of India's domestic talent both warm up to the different rhythms of the long format as well as vie to make a quick impression.
The Test team more or less picks itself in most departments including the back-ups, but there are a few questions that still don't have clear-cut answers. Primary amongst them will be in the facet of play that is most fragile - fast bowling. The injury to Mohammed Shami and him still being on the mend nearly a year after his exploits at the ODI World Cup has opened up the lookout for a third seamer. At the start of the Tests against England earlier this year, Mukesh Kumar seemed the incumbent to that slot, but after an off-colour outing in Visakhapatnam, he saw his spot go to Akash Deep, who delivered better impact in his lone Test.



But an established presence as India's third/fourth seaming option remains up for grabs and will be a closely watched aspect in the Duleep Trophy. Apart from Mukesh and Akash, the others vying for the spot include a variety of pacers who have been in and out of the Indian team like Prasidh Krishna who missed the just-concluded Maharaja T20 Trophy due to injury and will also miss the opening encounter at the Duleep Trophy.
Others clamouring for the spot include Khaleel Ahmed, who is yet to drive home his credentials as a red-ball bowler and Avesh Khan, who is knocking on the doors. There are others like Yash Dayal, Vidwath Kaverappa and Vyshak Vijaykumar who have excelled in domestic cricket but await opporunities at a higher level. Some notable names in the fray apart from them include Sandeep Warrier, Tushar Deshpande, Harshit Rana and Navdeep Saini, who all bring about varied skillsets.
With a variety of options on offer, the task of the selectors and team management will be far from easy as they set out to prepare for the next five months when they'd be looking for pacers who can do well in India, offer something different in Australia and also earmark a few for the long run.
Paras Mhambrey, who served as the bowling coach of India until the recent victorious T20 World Cup campaign earlier this year, sees an opportunity to grade them across a lot of metrics. "There's quite a lot of Test cricket here, You will require a pool of bowlers to last the 10 Test matches that India are playing because at some point you'd have to rest Bumrah or Siraj. Good to see that some of them are in the reckoning or close to selection," 
"Minutely, look at how these bowlers bowl in different phases. On flatter wickets, it's a different kind of wicket they'll be playing in, so how they come in the third spell or the fourth spell - it gives a very clear picture in terms or fitness, their understanding, the reading of the game....lot of these guys are in different phases of their career. So going ahead you can shortlist six or seven quality fast bowlers who you can bank on and rotate, this is only red-ball cricket and most of them will also be playing short formats as well," Mhambrey says