Ravikumar Samarth named captain of 22-man Karnataka squad for 2021 Vijay Hazare Trophy

Defending champions Karnataka on Monday named a 22-man squad for the upcoming 2021 Vijay Hazare tournament, which is set to commence on February 20th.

Opening batsman Ravikumar Samarth has been named the side's captain, just a week after Karnataka crashed out of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy following a 9-wicket loss against Punjab in the quarterfinal.

While Manish Pandey is still recovering from a tennis elbow injury, the duo of KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal will be away on national duty. Notably, experienced all-rounder Pavan Deshpande, who was the team's vice-captain during the T20 competition, has not been named in the squad.

The squad for the upcoming 50-over competition also features quite a few youngsters, with pacer Vyshak Vijaykumar and exciting batting talent Nikin Jose earning a call-up to the senior state side.

R Samarth made his Karnataka List A debut in 2014

28-year-old Samarth made his debut for Karnataka back in November 2014, during the first semifinal of the 2014 Vijay Hazare Trophy against Bengal.

Since then, the right-hander - who was notably Karnataka's only centurion in the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy tournament - has scored 1162 runs in 32 matches at a stellar average of 41.71.

Karnataka squad for 2021 Vijay Hazare Trophy

Ravikumar Samarth (C), Karun Nair, Devdutt Padikkal, Roham Kadam, Dega Nischal, KL Shrijith, Sharath BR (wk), Rakshith S (wk), Anirudha Joshi, KV Siddharth, Nikin Jose, Shreyas Gopal, Jagadeesha Suchith, Krishnappa Gowtham, Aditya Somanna, Shubhang Hegde, Abhimanyu Mithun, Prasidh Krishna, Ronit More, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Manoj Bhandage, MB Darshan.

Coach: Yere K Goud

Bowling coach: Sreenath Arvind.