5 seasoned cricketers who remained loyal to one Ranji team

#2 Vinay Kumar [Karnataka, 2004-present]

Vinay Kumar has been a vital cog in the Karnataka squad

Karnataka’s premier pacer at the moment, Vinay Kumar boasts of acres of Ranji experience under his belt. Vinay made his debut for Karnataka against Bengal in the 2004-05 season and performed relatively well, picking up five wickets in his debut game and ended with a tally of 23 wickets from the whole season.

In the following two seasons, Vinay Kumar was not at his best, picking up 22 and 27 wickets respectively but made up for it in the 2007-08 season when he picked up 40 wickets at an average of 18.52 to end the season as the second highest wicket-taker. In the ensuing 2009-10 season, the pacer from Davangere put up his best performance en route to picking up 46 wickets from eight matches at an outstanding average of 19.69 and continued his splendid form into IPL 2010, where he picked up 16 wickets while playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

At the back of splendid performances in the Ranji trophy and IPL, Vinay was chosen to represent India at the ICC World Twenty20 but could play just a solitary match against Sri Lanka before India’s ouster from the tournament. The same year, Vinay made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe and yet again played just one match prior to his injury.

With 31 ODI’s, 9 T20I’s and just one test match to his credit, the pacer’s national journey has not been the greatest. Nevertheless, his pace variation and clever cutters assisted by his batting prowess have come in very handy for Karnataka in the domestic scenario, a team which he has led to two consecutive title victories in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons since he took over the captaincy in 2010-11.