IPL Ahmedabad captain Hardik Pandya to skip upcoming domestic tournament

Team India All-rounder and IPL Ahmedabad captain Hardik Pandya to skip upcoming domestic tournament. Hardik Pandya will skip the Ranji Trophy starting on February 10 to focus on his India comeback in white-ball cricket. Kedar Devdhar was named skipper of the Baroda team on Monday.

Vishnu Solanki was named Devdhar’s deputy as the Baroda Cricket Association announced a 20-member squad ahead of the first phase of the tournament. However, Hardik’s name is missing from the squad list. Hardik has remained on the sidelines ever since the T20 World Cup last year, making himself unavailable for national selection due to back injury and further rehabilitation.

The 28-year-old Hardik Pandya, who received a lot of flak for not bowling during India’s dismal T20 World Cup campaign, hasn’t played red ball cricket since December 2018 and has often admitted that injuries have put a spanner on his prospects in the longest format of the game. It is expected that Hardik Pandya will return to competitive cricket in the Indian Premier League, where he is set to make his maiden appearance as a full-time captain with the CVC-owned Ahmedabad franchise in IPL.

The tournament will have 64 games in 62 days with the first phase comprising 57 matches and the second stage having seven knock-out games which comprises four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and the final. The elite group matches will be played in Rajkot, Cuttack, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Delhi, Haryana and Guwahati. Plate league matches will be held in Kolkata.

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Each team from elite group, barring one, will qualify for the quarterfinals. The lowest ranked qualified team from elite group will play plate toppers in the sole pre-quarterfinal.

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Baroda Squad for Ranji Trophy: Kedar Dhevdhar, Vishnu Solanki, Pratyush Kumar, Shivalik Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Abhimanyusingh Rajput, Dhruv Patel, Mitesh Patel, Lukman Meriwala, Babasafikhan Pathan (wk), Atit Sheth, Bhargav Bhatt, Parth Kohli, Shashwat Rawat, Soyeb Sopariya, Kartik Kakade, Gurjindersingh Mann, Jyotsnil Singh, Ninad Rathwa, Akshay More.