In recent times, the workload of the Indian players has been the primary focus for the Indian team management and hence, they have decided to ask R Ashwin and Ishant Sharma to sit out of the third round of Ranji Trophy matches starting on November 20.
The Indian team management is looking to keep the players fresh and ready for the team’s only four-day fixture in Australia ahead of the Test series. The Test specialists are scheduled to reach down under on November 24, with the match slated to commence four days later. The first Test is slated for December 6 in Adelaide.
Among the bowlers, only Mohammed Shami has got the green signal to play, that too with a condition that he will not bowl more than 15 overs, with the possibility of a “few extra overs” only if needed. Ishant has recovered from an ankle injury and featured for Delhi in their opening fixture against Himachal. In all, he bowled 28.3 overs across both innings for the match and finished with the figures of 4 for 82.
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KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, R Samarth, Manish Pandey, and Karun Nair won’t feature in Karnataka’s second fixture against Mumbai in Belagavi. Nair, the designated as the deputy skipper, is set to lead India A in New Zealand for the second and third four-day fixtures, of which Samarth and Agarwal are a part. Rahul and Pandey, meanwhile, are in Australia with India’s T20I squad. While Rahul is set to miss out on the entire season, Pandey will be available for the second half, when he is free of national commitments.
Mumbai too will be without Prithvi Shaw and Shreyas Iyer. Shaw is currently with India A in New Zealand, while Iyer is part of the T20I squad in Australia.
Cricket will return to Jammu and Kashmir after almost three years, when the state’s team hosts Tripura at the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar. So far, both teams have played two matches, losing one and drawing the other. Tripura however, managed to grab the first-innings lead in their draw, while J&K didn’t, leaving Tripura with three points to J&K’s one.
The last time J&K played a match at home was in December 2015. They were beaten by Saurashtra, by an innings and 63 runs, on that occasion.
