MUMBAI: In a huge boost to the Mumbai Under-25 team, the selectors on Friday included left-arm spinner Shams Mulani, who enjoyed a dream season for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy earlier this season, for the CK Nayudu Trophy knock-out matches in Ahmedabad. With 29 wickets in three games@15.62, including four five-wicket hauls, Mulani is the leading wicket-taker in the Ranji Trophy after the first half. To add to it, the 25-year-old has scored a couple of half-centuries too.
The Mumbai selectors want to give some game time to Mulani before the Ranji Trophy knockouts, which are scheduled in June, post the IPL. "Absolutely, that's the idea. Between the league stage and the knockouts of the Ranji Trophy, there's been a two-month gap. Shams bowled close to 300 overs in the league stage. We had advised him to rest after that. He's been training for the past two weeks. Now, he'll get some good match practice. The best part is that he's raring to go. Both Amol Muzumdar (Mumbai senior team coach) and Rajesh Pawar (Mumbai U-25 coach) were keen that Shams plays here," Mumbai chief selector Salil Ankola told TOI on Saturday.
The ex-India pacer also revealed that "Muzumdar is planning to start training for around 14-15 Mumbai (Ranji Trophy) boys who aren't playing in the IPL from April 11."
The Mumbai U-25 team play their quarterfinal against Karnataka at Ahmedabad from April 12.
The selectors have also decided to keep the five Under-19 players who did well for the Mumbai Under-25 team at the league stage for the Under-19 knockouts, which begin from April 18 in Kolkata. It meant that allrounder Musheer Khan and opener Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who played for the India Under-19 team in the U-19 World Cup, will turn out for the Mumbai U-19 team in the KOs. "We're grooming our U-19 boys. We wanted to give them a feel of higher age group cricket," Ankola said.
The squad includes talented youngster Divyansh Saxena, who played for the India Under-19 team in 2019 and 2020, scoring 747 runs in 18 games@53.35. Saxena learnt his cricket at former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar's academy.
The Mumbai U-25 Squad: Hardik Tamore (Captain), Khizar Dafedar (Vice Captain), Shams Mulani, Arman Jaffer, Rudra Dhanday, Suved Parkar, Gautam Waghela, Omkar Jadhav, Pranav Kela, Maxwell Swaminathan, Atharva Ankolekar, Atharva Poojary, Sylvester Dsouza, Saksham Jha, Minad Manjrekar, Vaibhav Kalambkar, Varun Joijode, Siddharth Akre, Bhupen Lalwani, Divyansh Saxena
