Within an hour of Mumbai clinching their 41st Ranji Trophy title, the BCCI announced a 15-man Rest of India squad that will take on the title winners for the Irani Cup. The squad had a lot of surprises, in the columns of both inclusions and exclusions.
The ROI squad will play against Ranji champions Mumbai in a one-off match from 6th March to 10th March at Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium.
Rest of India squad and their records for the 2015/16 season:
Srikar Bharat (Andhra Pradesh) – 541 runs
Faiz Fazal (Vidarbha) – 559 runs
Karun Nair (Karnataka) – 500 runs
Sheldon Jackson (Saurashtra) – 539 runs
Naman Ojha (Madhya Pradesh) – 645 runs
Sudip Chatterjee (Bengal) – 735 runs
Shahbaz Nadeem (Jharkhand) – 51 wickets
Jaydev Unadkat (Saurashtra) – 40 wickets
Barinder Sran (Punjab) – 25 wickets
Krishna Das (Assam) – 50 wickets
Aditya Wakhare (Vidarbha) – 49 wickets
Stuart Binny (Karnataka)
Jayant Yadav (Haryana)
Nathu Singh (Rajasthan)
Ian Dev Singh (Jammu and Kashmir)
There are likely to be question marks raised over the continuing snubs of MP’s Jalaj Saxena, the top all-rounder of the Ranji season, Robin Uthappa, who was one of the best batsman in the group stages, and other tested players like KL Rahul and Axar Patel.
There is a plethora of wicketkeeping options in the ROI squad - Naman Ojha, Sheldon Jackson and Srikar Bharat.
Mumbai have been traditionally a frequent champion of the Irani Cup, but have not been able to win the trophy in recent times – their last Irani Cup triumph was in 1997/98.
They won the Ranji final on Friday against Saurashtra, who have two representatives in the ROI squad - Jackson and Unadkat.
The Irani Cup match will be televised, and will become even more special if Mumbai’s Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane join the team for the match.
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