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| Players in action during the trials. Picture by Srinivas |
Jamshedpur, Nov. 1: In what can be termed as a step towards pushing youngsters to the senior grade, the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) has included as many as eight upcoming players in the list of 25-member Ranji probables, which was announced late this evening.
The probables have been asked to report to coach V. Venkat Ram for the coaching-cum-conditioning camp to be held from November 3.
The three-member selection panel — comprising Shekhar Sinha, Jodh Singh and Chanchal Dutta Gupta — seems to be working towards forming a squad with a mixture of youth and experience.
With efforts to form a pool of young cricketers for graduating them to senior team already under way, it should not be surprising if some of the new faces actually get a break.
The new faces include Rahul Kumar, Atul Priyanka, Rahul Kumar Prasad, Ravish Kumar Singh, Arun Kumar Vidyarthi, Raj Kumar Yadav, Varun Singh and Shashi Ranjan. “Spinners Sunny Gupta and Shahbaz Nadeem will join the camp after playing the first two under-19 matches in Mumbai later this month,” said JSCA secretary Rajesh Verma.
Syed Tariq-ur-Rahman, Surendra Singh, Kundan Kumar, C.M. Jha, Gurjeet Singh Soni, Madhusudan Tantubai, Manish Kumar, Manish Vardhan, Mihir Diwakar, Mohit Goyal, Rajiv Kumar, Ratan Kumar, Shahid Khan, Santosh Lal, Subroto Ghosh, S.S. Rao and Sumit Panda are other players in the list of probables.
Verma said the captain was supposed to be announced today but the selectors kept the matter in abeyance as they intend to watch the candidates for some more days. “I think the Ranji skipper would be announced on November 11,” the JSCA secretary added.
Sinha, the chairman of the Ranji selection panel, told The Telegraph that the probables were selected on the basis of their performance during friendly matches, which concluded at college ground. “It’s safe to select 25 probables because we want to test the skills of quite a number of senior and junior players. We’ll watch the probables in the camp and pick the final 15 after consultation with the team coach,” he added.
