The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2024-25 season is slated to begin across five cities on Saturday.

While India’s Test squad is taking on Australia in the Border Gavaskar Trophy, a host of India’s T20I heavyweights will be in action in the domestic T20 tournament, on the eve of the IPL 2025 Mega Auction.

With several key Indian limited-overs players in action, the tournament is certain to attract eyeballs this time. Here is a look at the top players to watch out for in SMAT 2024-25 season:

Baroda: Hardik Pandya

Hardik Pandya’s return to Mumbai Indians as captain suffered a lot of backlash last season. Though he could not take MI to the knockouts and has been pipped by teammate Suryakumar Yadav for the T20I captaincy, Hardik redeemed himself during India’s victorious T20 World Cup campaign. Hardik has been in free-flowing spirits since, lighting up the T20I circuit with both bat and ball before being unveiled as the top-ranked all-rounder in the format earlier this week. Named in the Baroda squad, Hardik will play under his brother Krunal return on his return to the T20 tournament after eight years.

Bengal- Mohammed Shami

A lot of focus will be on Mohammed Shami’s bowling fitness as he returns to white-ball action after a year, shortly after marking a successful red-ball comeback in the Ranji Trophy last week. Shami starred in a nail-biting win for Bengal, picking up seven wickets while also listing an enterprising 37 off 36 balls with the bat. Should the 34-year-old nail in his overs with pace and accuracy, Shami could be in the running to make the flight for Australia before the start of the SMAT knockouts.

Gujarat – Axar Patel

Snubbed from the Test team for the Australia series, Axar Patel had a limited role to play in India’s thrilling 3-1 T20I series win in South Africa. The bowling all-rounder was instrumental in India’s T20 World Cup win, but has only played a handful of games across formats since. Axar will lead the Gujarat squad as he aims to make a statement about his all-round prowess.

Kerala- Sanju Samson

After a topsy-turvy South Africa series that ended with two hundreds and as many ducks, Sanju Samson will return to domestic duties with Kerala in Hyderabad, the venue of his first T20I century against Bangladesh last month. The Kerala batter has found a rejuvenated lease of life at the top of the order, becoming the first batter to record three T20I tons in a calendar year. It will be interesting to see if the Rajasthan Royals skipper will continue to open in SMAT too.

Haryana – Yuzvendra Chahal

After being snubbed from the T20I set-up before the World Cup earlier this year, Yuzvendra Chahal will have a point to prove as the IPL Auctions are around the corner too. Chahal was not retained by the Rajasthan Royals despite the leggie topping the all-time IPL charts, having the first player in the history of IPL to take 200 wickets last season.

Maharashtra – Ruturaj Gaikwad

Ruturaj Gaikwad’s stop-start international career will need another major push at the domestic and the IPL level for the Maharashtra captain to win back a spot across formats. Last seen in India colours during the Zimbabwe tour in July, Gaikwad fell out of favour despite two handy knocks in the series. Gaikwad also led India A on its tour to Australia recently, but a string of low scores meant he had not done enough to to gain a back-up opener’s slot. The Chennai Super Kings captain will be in focus as he aims to make amends in the domestic white-ball tournament over the next two weeks.

Jharkhand – Ishan Kishan Mumbai- Shreyas Iyer (c), Shardul Thakur, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane Uttar Pradesh- Bhuvneshwar Kumar (c), Rinku Singh, Nitish Rana Punjab – Abhishek Sharma (c), Arshdeep Singh Hyderabad – Tilak Varma (c) Madhya Pradesh – Rajat Patidar (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan Tamil Nadu – Shahrukh Khan (c), Sai Kishore Karnataka – Mayank Agarwal (c), Manish Pandey Vidarbha – Jitesh Sharma (c), Umesh Yadav Rajasthan – Deepak Hooda, Deepak Chahar Delhi – Ishant Sharma Baroda – Krunal Pandya