MUMBAI: Shreyas Iyer, who led the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to the IPL title last season, has been appointed as the new Mumbai captain for the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, which will kick off on November 23. Mumbai will play their league matches in Hyderabad, and will take on Goa in their lung-opener.
On Sunday, the Mumbai Cricket Association’s (MCA) senior selection committee decided that veteran batsman Ajinkya Rahane, who is leading Mumbai in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season, will play under Iyer’s captaincy.
Iyer has been the top run-getter for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy after the first six rounds, having amassed 452 runs in four matches@90.40, with two centuries, including a double hundred (233 off 228 balls against Maharashtra at the Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy ground in BKC), while Rahane, who led Mumbai to their maiden SMAT title in the 2022-23 season, has only managed to score 174 runs in five matches@29.00.
In another significant move, the selection committee, in a big respite to his career, has also included opener Prithvi Shaw, who was dropped from the Ranji Trophy after the Maharashtra game on the grounds that he had to improve his fitness, in the 17-man squad.
As TOI had reported in its November 16 edition, the Mumbai squad doesn’t include India’s T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav, who will not be available for the first few matches of the league stage due to a personal issue-the wedding of his sister Dinal Yadav, and hence has not been named in the squad. Young opener Ayush Mhatre, who has slammed two centuries in his debut first-class season, will be missing the league stage of the tournament as he has to report for the India Under-19 camp and will then participate in the Under-19 Asia Cup in UAE.
Meanwhile, still recovering from their injuries, all-rounder Shivam Dube, No 3 batsman Musheer Khan and pacer Tushar Deshpande should be fit for the second half of the Ranji Trophy from January 23. Young opener
The squad: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Prithvi Shaw, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Jay Bista, Ajinkya Rahane, Siddhesh Lad, Suryansh Shedge, Sairaj Patil, Hardik Tamore (wk), Aakash Anand (wk), Shams Mulani, Himanshu Singh, Tanush Kotian, Shardul Thakur, Mohit Avasthi, Royston Dias,Juned Khan.