Ishant Sharma Replaces Gautam Gambhir As Delhi Captain

India fast-bowler Ishant Sharma has been appointed as captain by Delhi for the first two games of the upcoming Ranji Trophy season. The lanky pacer will replace his India teammate Gautam Gambhir who had led the team in the last four seasons. However, Gambhir will continue to open the innings alongside  Unmukt Chand.

The selection committee, comprising of Atul Wassan, Hari Gidwani and Robin Singh Jr, have brought in several new faces in the team with the likes of Himmat Singh and Kunal Chandela added to the squad.  Atul Wassan, chairman of senior selection committee, said that the panel collectively decided to ‘relive’ Gambhir from captaincy in order to help him get back to his best with the bat.

“We have collectively decided to relieve Gambhir from captaincy as we want him to score runs. Ishant having no captaincy experience doesn’t matter since he has played a lot of international cricket and he has Gambhir and KP Bhaskar (head coach) for guidance,” Wassan told The Indian Express.

Delhi’s last season was nothing less than a disaster. The capital-based team existed the Ranji Trophy at the group stage and their poor season was further marred by the feud between Gambhir and coach KP Bhaskar. The World Cup-winning star was reprimanded by a disciplinary committee and was later handed a suspended sentence of four games. However, with Bhaskar being retained as the coach, it seems Gambhir paid the price for the feud.

Meanwhile, spinner Vikas Mishra, who was part of India U-19 World Cup winning squad in 2012, has returned to the squad to partner left-arm spinner Manan Sharma and off-spinner Pulkit Narang.  Rishabh Pant has been selected as the wicketkeeper-batsman but keeping his India A assignment in mind, selectors have also included Anuj Rawat as the standbye.

“We are looking at all options. We want some U-19 players to play their age group because they stand a better chance there with the selectors watching. Injuries forced us to add more players to the probables before the camp began,”said Wassan.

“There will be rotations and we will continue to explore all options. Yes, Delhi didn’t have many matches this year but most of the players were playing cricket with their corporate teams and clubs,” said Wassan.

Delhi Ranji Trophy Squad:

Ishant Sharma (C), Gautam Gambhir, Unmukt Chand, Nitish Rana, Dhruv Shorey, Milind Kumar, Himmat Singh, Kunal Chandela, Rishabh Pant (WK), Manan Sharma, Vikas Mishra, Pulkit Narang, Navdeep Saini, Vikas Tokas, Kulwant Khejroliya. Standbyes: Simranjeet Singh, Shivam Sharma, Aditya Kaushik, Harsh Tyagi and Anuj Tyagi