Nagpur, Nov 9 (IANS) Left-handed batter Atharva Taide will captain Vidarbha in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy after the Vidarbha Cricket Association’s (VCA) senior selection committee named a 17-member squad for the tournament on Monday.
Vidarbha, who haven’t won the premier T20 competition so far, will play their Elite Group D matches in Kolkata from November 14 to 26, with three of their seven league games scheduled to be staged at the Eden Gardens.
The Elite Group D also features Mumbai, Gujarat, Hyderabad, Odisha, Goa, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh, thus making it one of the more competitive pools in the tournament. Usman Ghani will continue as head coach, with Sebastian Antony as the assistant coach in charge of fielding.
Left-handed batter Yash Rathod, who is currently with the India A team for the red-ball games against New Zealand A, has also been included. Left-arm spin-bowling all-rounder Harsh Dubey is unavailable due to his being named in the India A squad for the ACC Rising Stars Men’s Asia Cup, to be held in Doha from November 19-29.
Other prominent squad members include Aman Mokhade, Danish Malewar, Shubham Dubey, Nachiket Bhute, Praful Hinge, Darshan Nalkande and Saurabh Dubey. Vidarbha will begin their campaign against Goa on November 14, before facing Odisha two days later.
The side will play its next two games at the Eden Gardens – against Hyderabad on November 18 and facing heavyweights Mumbai on November 20. Vidarbha next face Gujarat on November 22, before taking on Uttarakhand on November 24.
Their league stage commitments will end with a meeting against Chhattisgarh on November 26. The clash against Mumbai, led by T20 World Cup-winning skipper Suryakumar Yadav, is likely to be the standout game of Vidarbha’s group stage campaign.
Vidarbha squad: Atharva Taide (captain), Aman Mokhade, Danish Malewar, Shubham Dubey, R. Samarth, Varun Bisht, Yash Kadam, Yash Rathod, Adhyayan Daga, Vedant Jajoo, Parth Rekhade, Nachiket Bhute, Praful Hinge, Darshan Nalkande, Mandar Ghodmare, Saurabh Dubey, and Abhishek Agrawal.
–IANS
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