Suryakumar to captain Mumbai and Sooryavanshi, 15, Bihar as the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy opens Saturday

The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, India’s national T20 championship, starts on Saturday, November 14, and the first squads are out. Bihar have named Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 15, as captain for the first two matches, and Mumbai have picked Suryakumar Yadav to lead them, with Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Harshit Rana among the established names turning out for their states.

The shape of the tournament

Thirty-eight teams are in this year’s competition. Thirty-two Elite teams are split into four groups of eight, and each plays seven league matches. The other six teams are in a Plate group and play each other once. The league stage runs until November 26, the Super League from November 30 to December 4, and the final is on December 6.

Jharkhand are the defending champions. Under Ishan Kishan they won their first title, beating Haryana by 69 runs in last season’s final. Kishan is not in any of the squads announced so far.

Bihar hand the captaincy to a teenager

The Bihar Cricket Association named a 17-man squad on November 6 with Sooryavanshi as captain and Suraj Kashyap as his deputy. It will be his first time leading a senior side. Mangal Mahour and Shakib Hussain are in the squad subject to fitness.

BCA president Harsh Vardhan said: “Vaibhav has already demonstrated tremendous talent, confidence and maturity at a young age.” He said the captaincy gives the batter a chance to develop as a leader.

Sooryavanshi arrives with a large reputation. He scored 175 off 80 balls in the Under-19 World Cup final, a 100-run win over England, and was the leading run-getter of IPL 2026 for Rajasthan Royals with 776 runs at a strike rate of 237.30. He has since played for India in T20Is, including the series in New Zealand, which we covered when he was in line to open in Christchurch.

Bihar are in Elite Group B with Delhi, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Railways, Saurashtra and Tamil Nadu. They open against Saurashtra in Indore on November 14 and, according to reports, play Railways on November 16.

Mumbai turn to Suryakumar

Mumbai announced their squad on Monday, November 9, naming Suryakumar as captain. He was not part of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad, where Siddhesh Lad is captain, and Shardul Thakur, who led Mumbai across formats last season, returns from a finger injury to play under him.

“It is always a matter of immense pride to represent Mumbai,” Suryakumar said, adding that the team has a good mix of experienced and young players and that the aim is to “go all the way and bring the trophy home.”

The 16-man squad is Suryakumar, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Hardik Tamore, Sarfaraz Khan, Shivam Dube, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Shams Mulani, Atharva Ankolekar, Maxwell Swaminathan, Sylvester D’Souza, Divyansh Saxena, Suved Parkar, Musheer Khan, Sairaj Patil and Mohit Avasthi. Their first match is against Hyderabad in Kolkata on November 14.

The other squads so far

Bengal will be led by Abhimanyu Easwaran, and the pace attack has Shami and Mukesh Kumar, with Shahbaz Ahmed among the all-rounders. Shami was left out of India’s squads for the New Zealand tour and missed a Ranji game earlier this season, so his spell in this tournament will be watched closely.

Delhi are captained by Ayush Badoni, who has scored a run of big Ranji hundreds this season. The squad has Priyansh Arya, Yash Dhull, Ishant Sharma, Harshit Rana, Mayank Yadav, Suyash Sharma and Digvesh Rathi. Tamil Nadu are led by R Sai Kishore, with T Natarajan, Varun Chakravarthy and N Jagadeesan, and Baroda by Krunal Pandya, with Deepak Hooda and Jitesh Sharma.

Delhi and Tamil Nadu are both in Bihar’s group, so Sooryavanshi’s side will face two of these squads within the league stage.

Why it matters

Each Elite team plays seven league matches in 13 days, from November 14 to November 26, so a player’s form over a short run decides whether his state reaches the Super League. For Shami, who is outside India’s current squads, and for Ishant Sharma and Harshit Rana at Delhi, the tournament is a stage to stay in view of the selectors. For Bihar, a first senior captaincy for a 15-year-old puts a young side under more attention than a group of this kind usually gets.

What happens next

Bihar play Saurashtra in Indore and Mumbai play Hyderabad in Kolkata on November 14. Squads for Jharkhand and the other teams had not been published in the reports read for this story. The league stage ends on November 26 and the final is on December 6.