Senior India batsman and former vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane will now be playing under the captaincy of young dynamic opener Prithvi Shaw in the upcoming Ranji Trophy 2022.
The Mumbai senior selection committee, consisting of chairman Salil Ankola, Gulam Parkar, Sunil More, Prasad Desai and Anand Yalvigi, appointed 22-year-old Prithvi Shaw as the captain of the 21-member squad for this year’s season.
India’s premier domestic red-ball tournament, the Ranji Trophy, which was cancelled last season due to the pandemic and postponed this year from January, will be played in two phases – before and after the IPL 2022. The first phase will kickstart on February 10 and go on till March 15 while the second phase will be held from May 30 to June 26 after the IPL.
Ajinkya Rahane along with Cheteshwar Pujara have been under heavy scrutiny for their lack of runs in Test cricket. Pujara will be playing for Saurashtra, to be led by pacer Jaydev Unadkat. The places of both the senior batters in under threat and they would want to put up good performances in the Ranji Trophy ahead of the Sri Lanka Test series.
Saurashtra and Mumbai are placed in in the same group, Group D, along with Odisha and Goa, and will play their league matches in Ahmedabad.
Since the start of 2020, Pujara averages 26 in 20 Tests with no three-figure score, while Rahane averages 24 in 19 Tests with one century to his name. In the recently-lost Test series in South Africa, both the batters managed one fifty each in 6 innings.
BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has also recently advised the two out-of-form batters to play in Ranji Trophy and score big runs there.
“Yeah, they are very good players. Hopefully, they will go back to Ranji Trophy and score a lot of runs, which I am sure they will. I don’t see any problem [for them to go back to domestic cricket after playing so much international cricket],” Sourav Ganguly told Sportstar.
Mumbai’s captain Prithvi Shaw will also seek the upcoming tournament as an opportunity to stake his comeback in the Test side, having been dropped after the Adelaide Test in December 2020.
Also named in Mumbai’s squad is Arjun Tendulkar, son of legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar.
Mumbai Ranji Trophy Squad:
Prithvi Shaw (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Aakarshit Gomel, Arman Jaffer, Sarfaraz Khan, Sachin Yadav, Aditya Tare (wicket-keeper), Hardik Tamore (wicket-keeper), Shivam Dube, Aman Khan, Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Prashant Solanki, Shashank Attarde, Dhaval Kulkarni, Mohit Awasthi, Prince Badiani, Siddharth Raut, Roystan Dias, Arjun Tendulkar.
