Dhoni to captain Jharkhand in Vijay Hazare Trophy

MS Dhoni has been named captain of the 18-member Jharkhand squad for the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy, starting February 25. Dhoni had stepped down as India's limited-overs captain at the start of 2017, ahead of the ODIs and T20Is against England. Later on the eve of the IPL auction, Rising Pune Supergiants replaced Dhoni with Steven Smith as captain for the tenth season of the IPL.

Dhoni represented Jharkhand in last season's Vijay Hazare Trophy - before that he had last played a domestic game for the state in 2007 - but did not captain the team. Instead, fast bowler Varun Aaron led Jharkhand to the quarter-finals.

Dhoni has had stints with Jharkhand as a mentor. He first worked with the team in the the lead up to the Buchi Babu All-India Invitational Cricket Tournament run by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) in August 2016. Then he mentored Jharkhand in the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy.

Jharkhand are placed in Group D in the Vijay Hazare Trophy along with Chhattisgrah, Hyderabad, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Saurashtra and Services. Jharkhand will play their first game against Karnataka in Kolkata on February 25.

Jharkhand squad: MS Dhoni (capt.), Ishan Kishan, Virat Singh, Ishank Jaggi, Saurabh Tiwary, Kaushal Singh, Pratyush Singh, Shahbaz Nadeem, Sonu Kumar Singh, Varun Aaron, Rahul Shukla, Anukul Roy, Monu Kumar Singh, Jaskaran Singh, Anand Singh, Shahsheem Rathore, Vikash Singh, Kumar Deobrat