KL Rahul returns to Vijay Hazare Trophy after 6 years, will play for Karnataka under the captaincy of the player who remained unsold in IPL auction.

By Samira Vishwas On Dec 18, 2025

KL Rahul, who recently captained India in the absence of Shubman in the three-match ODI series against South Africa, is now ready to return to domestic cricket. The 33-year-old right-handed batsman has been included in Karnataka’s Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025–26 squad. This tournament is starting from 24th December and Karnataka announced its 16 member squad on Wednesday, 17th December.

Along with KL Rahul, fast bowler Prasidh Krishna is also included in the team, who was recently a part of the ODI series against South Africa. Apart from this, Devdutt Padikkal has also returned to the team. This decision of Karnataka is in line with the recent policy of BCCI, in which emphasis is being given to Indian players to play domestic tournaments.

This time the captaincy of Karnataka will be in the hands of Mayank Agarwal, who remained unsold in the IPL 2026 mini auction. At the same time, Karun Nair has been made the vice-captain of the team. In such a situation, KL Rahul will be seen playing under the leadership of Mayank Agarwal in the domestic ODI tournament after a long time.

Karnataka has been placed in Group A in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where they will face Jharkhand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Tripura, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The team will play all its group stage matches in Ahmedabad. Karnataka’s first match will be against Jharkhand on 24 December.

KL Rahul last played the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2019. Between 2010 and 2019, he played 42 matches for Karnataka in this tournament and batted in all the innings. During this period, Rahul scored 1709 runs at an excellent average of 44.97, in which his highest score was 131. He has four centuries and 11 half-centuries to his name.

Karnataka’s squad for Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26:

Mayank Agarwal (captain), Devdutt Padikkal, Karun Nair (vice-captain), R. Smaran, KL Srijit, Abhinav Manohar, Shreyas Gopal, V. Vaishakh, Manwant Kumar L, Srisha S Achar, Abhilash Shetty, Sharath BR, Harshil Dharmani, Dhruv Prabhakar, KL Rahul, Prasidh Krishna.