Picture Credit: Twitter
The Karnataka Cricket Association on Tuesday announced its 20-member squad for the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy scheduled to be played from 10 February. Many IPL bound players have been included in the Karnataka squad including Manish Pandey and Mayank Agarwal. Devdutt Padikkal has also been named to the squad.
Maish Pandey has been handed the captaincy reins while R Samarth is the vice-captain of the team. Apart from the aforementioned trio, Karun Nair, Krishnappa Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Prasidh Krishna, J Suchith, and KC Cariappa are the other IPL bound players who have been included in the 20-member squad.
Karnataka Ranji Trophy squad
Manish Pandey (c), Mayank Agarwal, R Samarth (vc), Karun Nair, Devdutt Padikkal, KV Siddharth, D Nischal, Aneeshwar Gautam, Shubhang Hegde, J Suchith, KC Cariappa, Krishnappa Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Sharath Srinivas, BR Sharath, Prasidh Krishna, Ronit More, M Venkatesh, V Vyshak, Vidyadhar Patil
Hardik Pandya skips Ranji to focus on IPL preparations
While all the above players chose to play the primary first-class tournament ahead of the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League, Hardik Pandya chose not to take part in the domestic red-ball tournament to prepare for the IPL and focus on his comeback in white-ball cricket. Junior Pandya's name is missing from the Baroda squad which features his brother Krunal Pandya. Kedar Devdhar will be leading the team.
Baroda Squad: Kedar Dhevdhar, Vishnu Solanki, Pratyush Kumar, Shivalik Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Abhimanyusingh Rajput, Dhruv Patel, Mitesh Patel, Lukman Meriwala, Babasafikhan Pathan (wk), Atit Sheth, Bhargav Bhatt, Parth Kohli, Shashwat Rawat, Soyeb Sopariya, Kartik Kakade, Gurjindersingh Mann, Jyotsnil Singh, Ninad Rathwa, Akshay More.
Ranji Trophy league phase from 10 February
After much speculation and discussion, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) decided to hold the Ranji Trophy 2021-22 in two phases. While the league phases will be played before the IPL 2022 commences, the knockout stage will be held post the Indian Premier League. The league phase is all set to start from 17 February. The pre Quarter Finals will be played from 7th-10th March.