Surya to join Mumbai squad for Vijay Hazare Trophy

MUMBAI: Defending champions Mumbai will be bolstered by the inclusion of Suryakumar Yadav when they start their Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.

While Surya will miss today’s match against Tamil Nadu, he will join the squad later in the day. Despite Surya joining the squad, left-arm spinner Shams Mulani will remain the skipper. “It was in fact Surya’s suggestion that Shams should remain the captain. That’s a fantastic gesture by him,” said a source.

Earlier, Siddhesh Lad was the only experienced player in the middle-order and Surya’s addition will come in handy with some key batsmen missing. Mumbai will be without Shreyas Iyer and Ajaikya Rahane—both are expected to be picked for the South Africa tour. They are also without Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan, who are with India ‘A’ team. Mumbai had opened with Rahane and Shaw in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy but are expected to open with young guns Yashasvi Jaiswal and

Arman Jaffer. Both had opened the innings during the men’s Under-25 tourney. Jaiswal scored 372 runs at an average of 74.40 in five matches hit two fifties and equal number of centuries in the tournament. Jaffer, making a comeback into the Mumbai team this season after a knee surgery, was also in good nick scoring 260 runs in five matches at an average of 52 with the help of three half-centuries.

The bowling line-up will be boosted by skipper Mulani, who had missed the Mushtaq Ali Trophy due to Covid, and veteran pacer Dhawal Kulkarni. Groups: Group A (Mumbai): Andhra, Odisha, Gujarat, J&K, HP, Vidarbha; Group B (Thiruv’puram): Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Baroda,

Bengal, Puducherry;

(Mohali): Delhi, Jharkhand, Haryana, Hyderabad, Saurashtra, UP; Group D (Rajkot): MP, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh,

Kerala; Group E (Ranchi): Assam, Goa, Punjab, Railways, Rajasthan, Services;

Group (Jaipur): Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Bihar