Mayank Agarwal The man who led Karnataka and was the highest run-scorer in the recently concluded Ranji Trophy season is set to captain Rest of India in the Irani Cup match against Madhya Pradesh. The tournament is to start from March 1 in Gwalior.
Agarwal is likely to partner with Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran. Mumbai’s star batsman Sarfaraz Khan, on the other hand, has been ruled out of the tournament due to a finger injury. He will be the most notable absentee in the 16-member ROI squad.
The match was initially scheduled to be played in Indore, but was shifted to Gwalior after the Holkar Stadium earned the hosting rights for the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia, starting on March 1.
Sudeep Kumar Gharami, Yashasvi Jaiswal, B Inderjit, and Yash Dhull will form the backbone of ROI’s batting unit. ROI’s pace bowling department will be led by the Bengal pace duo of Mukesh Kumar and Akash Deep and will have Sakariya and Delhi’s Navdeep Saini for company. Left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar of Uttar Pradesh and leg-spinner Mayank Markande of Punjab are also part of the ROI team.
On the other hand, in the absence of regular captain Aditya Srivastava, Himanshu Mantri will take charge of Madhya Pradesh. They have Rajat Patidar, Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan, Shubham Sharma and Yash Dubey in the team.
Full Squad:
Rest of India: Mayank Agarwal (c), Sudip Kumar Gharami, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Harvik Desai, Mukesh Kumar, Atit Sheth, Chetan Sakariya, Navdeep Saini, Upendra Yadav (wk), Mayank Markande, Saurabh Kumar, Akash Deep, B Indrajith, Pulkit Narang, Yash Dhull.
Madhya Pradesh: Himanshu Mantri (c&wk), Rajat Patidar, Yash Dubey, Harsh Gawli, Shubham Sharma, Venkatesh Iyer, Akshat Raghuwanshi, Aman Solanki, Kumar Kartikeya, Saransh Jain, Avesh Khan, Ankit Kushwah, Gaurav Yadav, Anubhav Agarwal, Mihir Hirwani .