Ajinkya Rahane to be included in Mumbai's Ranji Trophy squad, will play under Prithvi Shaw's captaincy - Reports

Former Indian Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane will play under 22-year-old Prithvi Shaw's leadership in the Ranji Trophy 2021-22, Cricbuzz reported on Monday.

The decision was jointly taken by the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) selection committee and coach Amol Muzumdar after due consultations with Rahane.

Rahane has an unbeaten captaincy record in Test cricket. As vice-captain, he stood in for former skipper Virat Kohli in six Tests, winning four and drawing two.

His most notable achievement was leading a young, injury-battered side to a remarkable 2-1 Test series win against a full-strength Australia down under.

But soon after that series, he hit a year-long rut of bad form, which culminated in him losing the vice-captaincy to Rohit Sharma in December last year. Calls for him to be dropped from the side to work on his game on the domestic circuit also grew.

In the report, an MCA official claimed that captaincy isn't a matter of "ego" for Rahane, adding that he has no qualms about playing under Shaw. The source said:

"Captaincy is not important for someone like Ajinkya, who has achieved what was considered to be impossible for a cricket captain. He has agreed to play as well as mentor the side and help restore the Mumbai glory in domestic cricket. He has no ego issues over captaincy and has no problem with Shaw as the skipper."

The elite red-ball competition was originally scheduled to begin on January 13 before being postponed due to the rising COVID-19 cases across the country.

The MCA had accordingly announced a 21-man squad in December without including Rahane because he was busy with the South Africa tour.

Here's the original squad: Prithvi Shaw (Captain), Arman Jaffer, Sarfaraz Khan, Sachin Yadav, Aakarshit Gomel, Aditya Tare (W.K.), Hardik Tamore (W.K.), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shivam Dube, Aman Khan, Shashank Attarde, Dhaval Kulkarni, Mohit Awasthi, Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Roystan Dias, Arjun Tendulkar, Prashant Solanki, Prince Badiani and Siddharth Raut.

The 33-year-old is now likely to be the only addition to the revised squad which is likely to be announced soon.

Hopefully, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara will score a lot of runs in Ranji Trophy: Sourav Ganguly

Recently, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, while speaking to Sportstar, had expressed hope that Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara (also struggling for form) will go back to the domestic competition and "score a lot of runs."

He said:

"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]. Ranji Trophy is a huge tournament, and we have all played the tournament."

Mumbai are part of Group D for the Ranji Trophy 2021-22 alongside defending champions Saurashtra, Odisha and Goa. The first phase of the season will kick off on February 10.