Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara
– Photo: Social Media
Expansion
While new players will try to make their impact in the Ranji Trophy cricket competition starting from Friday (January 5) at various places in the country, some old players will try their best to regain their lost prestige. There are not likely to be many changes in the Indian team for the five-Test series against England starting later this month. 19 matches will start simultaneously on different grounds of the country.
After this, Indian players will be busy in limited overs cricket only which includes IPL and T20 World Cup to be held in June. In Ranji Trophy, all eyes will be on Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara who are currently out of the Indian Test team. Both these players will try to maintain their claim by making big scores. Rahane will also lead 41-time champions Mumbai.
Mayank Agarwal will present claim
Similarly, Karnataka’s Mayank Agarwal, who scored the highest 990 runs in the last season, will also try to strengthen his claim for a place in the national team by playing big innings. Currently, young Yashasvi Jaiswal is opening the innings for India in Test cricket along with Rohit Sharma. Apart from Agarwal, the contenders for opening batsman in the team also include Abhimanyu Easwaran, who is currently in South Africa with the team due to injury to Ruturaj Gaikwad. In this way Easwaran will not be able to play in the first round match of Ranji Trophy.
Sarfaraz Khan has a chance to make an impact
Apart from these, there are many young players who are desperate to leave their impact. These also include Mumbai’s Sarfaraz Khan, who despite performing well in the last few seasons, failed to make a place in the national team. The weakness of Indian fast bowling was also exposed in the Test series against South Africa due to Mohammed Shami’s injury as Prasidh Krishna, who replaced him in the team, did not perform as expected.
All eyes on Unadkat too
After this, there is a discussion going on to strengthen the ‘bench strength’ of fast bowling. In such circumstances, young fast bowlers like Karnataka’s Vidyut Kawerappa, Vijaykumar, Gujarat’s Arjan Nagawaswala and Bengal’s Ishan Porel will leave no stone unturned to make their impact. Apart from these young fast bowlers, Saurashtra captain Jaydev Unadkat will also try to strengthen his claim.