Ranji Trophy 2016-17: Tamil Nadu squad to face Mumbai announced; Vijay and Ashwin not included

The Tamil Nadu Ranji team is dealt with a big blow just days before the semifinal clash against Mumbai. Tamil Nadu’s star performers and the mainstays in the Indian Test team, Murali Vijay and R Ashwin are ruled out of the semifinals as they are yet to recover from the injuries they sustained in the recently concluded against England.

Vijay suffered a shoulder injury while fielding in the fifth Test against the Poms in Chennai and left the field immediately, but managed to come out to bat in the first innings and fielded throughout the second innings. On the other hand, Ashwin is suffering from Sports Hernia and will take at least one more week to recover.

In their absence, the Tamil Nadu selectors have retained the team that thrashed Karnataka by 7 wickets in the quarterfinals at Vizag. It was earlier reported that the TN team management was ready to pick Vijay in the XI even if he is 80 % fit as he just needs to bat once and field in the slips. But, Vijay’s injury is yet to heal as quickly as the team management would have expected.

A senior TNCA official said, “as of now they are not part of the TN team and they have not been declared fit yet. The squad that was picked for the quarterfinal match against Karnataka has been retained. The players will leave for Rajkot on Wednesday.“

With the absence of Vijay and Ashwin, Tamil Nadu will be expecting the likes of Abhinav Mukund, Dinesh Karthick, the Baba twins, Vijay Shankar and their bowlers to step up. The pace attack led by young Aswin Crist is one of the main reasons why TN have managed to come this far this season. Right-arm pacer K Vignesh is leading the wicket-takers chart for TN with 37 wickets followed by Crist with 34 wickets and T Natarajan with 23. The pacers were backed well by their spinner Aushik Srinivas, who has taken 17 wickets this season.

Skipper Abhinav Mukund, who suffered from high fever during the Karnataka match, has recovered and will lead the side against Mumbai. Tamil Nadu will face Mumbai in the first semifinals at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot, starting January 1.

Squad: Abhinav Mukund (captain), Vijay Shankar (vice-captain), L Suryaprakash, Kaushik Gandhi, B Inderjith, Dinesh Karthick, B Aparajith, Aswin Crist, K Vignesh, Aushik Srinivas, T Natarajan, N Jagadeesan, Ganga Sridhar Raju, Rahil Shah and Malolan Rangarajan