# North Zone bench top Ranji scorer, pick Yash Dhull in Duleep Trophy 2026-08-23T13:35:44+00:00 | Sports | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets North Zone's Duleep Trophy quarter-final selection has stirred controversy. Coaches Ajay Sharma and Sarandeep Singh dropped opener Sanat Sangwan, who scored 828 runs in the previous Ranji season and was third among top run-getters, to instead play former India U-19 captain Yash Dhull. Dhull, who managed only 381 runs in the 2025-26 Ranji season and is not a specialist opener, was dismissed for 9 on Sunday, appearing uncomfortable against Mumbai's Tushar Deshpande and Shardul Thakur. Rediff.com reports that DDCA secretary Ashok Sharma said the coaches alone decide the XI and that he could not explain the decision. A senior DDCA official suggested Dhull's T20 performances in the Delhi Premier League influenced the call. Times of India notes that the BCCI has reverted to zonal selection this year, keeping national selectors out of the process, and quotes former selector Devang Gandhi calling it a 'defeat of the tournament's purpose' if the highest run-scoring opener is benched. Both outlets report that players are primarily auditioning for a spot in the India A Test side against Australia A in October. Sangwan's exclusion has revived debate on whether the zonal system allows personal biases to override performance. ## Indian Opinion Analysis Rediff.com leads with the controversial selection decision itself, detailing Sangwan's runs and Dhull's failure. Times of India wraps the same episode into a broader debate on the tournament's fading relevance and the absence of national selectors. Rediff foregrounds internal DDCA politics and the personal bias charge. ToI foregrounds the systemic flaw: zonal associations picking their own. Neither source faults the board's decision to revert to zonal selection, both treat the Sangwan exclusion as evidence that credibility is lost. The measured takeaway: the mechanism that produced the snub (zonal coaches) is the same mechanism the board reinstated this year. Watch for BCCI's response to the growing call, cited by both outlets, to restore selector oversight for the next edition. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 2 government-critical - rediff.com (government critical) Leads with the dropped player's stats and the 'inexplicable' bias charge, names DDCA faction politics and coach's match-fixing ban - timesofindia.indiatimes.com (government critical) Wraps the same controversy into a broader critique of the zonal system's relevance without national selectors This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above. Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-08-24T03:41:07+00:00. Tags: Ajay Sharma, DDCA, Duleep Trophy, Sanat Sangwan, Yash Dhull Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/north-zone-duleep-trophy-selection-sparks-controversy-over-dropped-batsman/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/north-zone-duleep-trophy-selection-sparks-controversy-over-dropped-batsman/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/