Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26 started from 24 December. Only a week has passed since the tournament started, but till now more than 50 players have scored centuries. The bats of Devdutt Padikkal and Ruturaj Gaikwad are raining centuries along with runs in this tournament. The Indian squad for the ODI series against New Zealand is going to be announced in the next few days. Gaikwad’s excellent form can get him included in the Indian squad against New Zealand.

Gaikwad’s bat is roaring a lot

While captaining Maharashtra in the match against Uttarakhand on 31 December, Rituraj Gaikwad played an inning of 124 runs. Thanks to his century, Maharashtra had scored 331 runs in this match. Gaikwad had not been able to score even a half-century in the Vijay Hazare Trophy till now, but in the match against Uttarakhand, he pulled out all the stops and scored a century.

Ruturaj Gaikwad played all three matches in the ODI series against South Africa. He got the opportunity to bat in 2 innings. He played a century inning of 105 runs in the second ODI match against South Africa. Due to his consistently good form, he has staked claim to retain his place in the ODI team.

RCB batsman is creating chaos

Devdutt Padikkal, who plays for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL, is the batsman who has scored the most centuries so far in Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26. Padikkal had earlier scored centuries against Jharkhand (147 runs) and Kerala (124 runs). Now he has played an innings of 113 runs against Puducherry.

Devdutt Padikkal has so far gone ahead in terms of scoring the most runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26 tournament. So far, he has scored 406 runs in 4 matches at an excellent average of 101.50, which includes 3 century innings.

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Ruturaj Gaikwad completed his century in 77 balls in the second ODI against South Africa. This is the first ODI century of his career. He made a partnership of 195 runs with Virat Kohli for the third wicket. Gaikwad was out on the ball of Yansen after scoring 105 runs.

When Rituraj Gaikwad came, India had lost 2 wickets at the score of 62, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal were out and returned to the pavilion. It was expected that now the pace of runs would slow down, but Kohli and Gaikwad did not let this happen. Both of them moved the innings forward with caution and also hit the loose balls hard.

Rituraj Gaikwad created history

Rituraj Gaikwad has become the second fastest batsman to score a century in India vs South Africa ODI. He completed his century in 77 balls. In this matter, only Yusuf Pathan is ahead of him, who completed his century in 68 balls in 2011. This was Rituraj Gaikwad’s 8th ODI International, before this he had scored 50 plus score once.

Virat Kohli scored his second consecutive century

After Ranchi, Virat Kohli also scored a century in Raipur, he scored 102 runs in 93 balls. In this he hit 2 sixes and 7 fours. This is Kohli’s 84th international and 53rd ODI century.

This is Virat Kohli’s 7th ODI century against South Africa. He has become the batsman to score the most centuries in India vs South Africa ODI, leaving behind Quinton de Kock (6 centuries).

India’s playing 11

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Washington Sundar, KL Rahul (captain, wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna.

South Africa’s playing 11

Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock (wk), Temba Bavuma (c), Mathieu Bretzke, Tony De Zorzi, Dewald Brevis, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Keshav Maharaj, Nandre Berger, Lungi Ngidi.

In the first unofficial ODI match, India has defeated South Africa by 4 wickets. In the ODI match played in Rajkot, South Africa A scored 285 runs while playing first. In reply, India A ensured victory by 4 wickets in the last over on the basis of Rituraj Gaikwad’s century. Gaikwad played the match-winning innings of 117 runs.

The South African team won the toss and chose to bat first in this match. The opening spell of Arshdeep Singh and Prasidh Krishna put the South African team on the back foot, as they lost three wickets for the score of just one run. By the time the fourth quarter was scored at 16 runs and 53 runs were scored, half of the South African team had returned to the pavilion.

Meanwhile, Diane Forrester and Delano Potgetter made a strong comeback for South Africa A in the match by making a partnership of 113 runs. Forrester played an inning of 77 runs. After this, Potgetter along with Bjorn Fortuin added 87 runs. Potgetter made an important contribution of 90 runs and Bjorn made 59 runs.

Rituraj Gaikwad’s century

For Team India, which was chasing the target of 286 runs, Abhishek Sharma was out after scoring 31 runs and Riyan Parag was out after scoring only 8 runs. Rituraj Gaikwad was in command at the other end. Gaikwad along with Tilak Verma made a partnership of 89 runs to take the Indian team closer to victory.

Gaikwad was out after scoring 117 runs. Nitish Kumar Reddy also played an important inning of 37 runs in 26 balls in a pressure situation, he made a partnership of 65 runs with Nishant Sindhu. Sindhu scored 29 unbeaten runs. The second unofficial ODI match between the two teams will be played on 16 November.

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Rituraj Gaikwad has scored a century against the Central Zone in the Dilip Trophy. In the semi -finals, Gaikwad won the West Zone from trouble by hitting a century in difficult situations. He has not played any match for Team India after July 2024, but on the basis of this century, he has caught the attention of the selectors. However, Shreyas Iyer could not score a big score. Khalil Ahmed made him a clean bold at the score of 25 runs.

Rituraj Gaikwad, who captained the CSK team in the Indian Premier League, came to bat on number-4 for the Gaikwad West Zone. The team had lost 2 wickets for just 10 runs, when Gaikwad took one end and made a very important partnership of 82 runs with Aryan Desai. Desai was dismissed for 39 runs. He then added 42 runs with Shreyas Iyer.

Rituraj Gaikwad becomes One Man Army

Rituraj Gaikwad, who captained the CSK team in the Indian Premier League, came to bat on number-4 for the Gaikwad West Zone. The team had lost 2 wickets for just 10 runs, when Gaikwad took one end and made a very important partnership of 82 runs with Aryan Desai. Desai was dismissed for 39 runs. He then added 42 runs with Shreyas Iyer.

The 2 -match domestic Test series is coming near against the West Indies in October. After that Team India has to play Test series against South Africa. Gaikwad continued well in the Dilip Trophy, so his return to India is possible.

Anyway, the Indian Test team needs a good batsman of number-3. In the series against England, both Karun Nair and Sai Sudarshan were flopped on number-3. Gaekwad has the experience of batting in the top order.

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