Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018: We Want Gautam Gambhir to Play the Role of Mentor - Atul Wassan

There was a bit of a surprise when Delhi decided to remove captain Rishabh Pant from the post. He led the team to the final of the Ranji Trophy 2017/18, and when it was the time to reward him, selectors dumped the youngster.

Selectors had no choice but to look at a senior player for the job and they inked on Pradeep Sangwan, the second most senior player after Gautam Gambhir,

“We decided that Rishabh is struggling a bit with his form and we didn’t want to
burden him with captaincy. Pradeep Sangwan is fit and is the seniormost player in the set-up playing from 2008. So we thought that Sangwan
should be made the captain,” chairman of selectors Atul Wassan told PTI.

On being asked why they didn’t appoint Gambhir as captain, Wassan said that selection committee want Gambhir to perform the mentor role,

“We want Gautam to play the role of a mentor in this set-up,” he added.

Gaurav Kumar is the only new face in the side. They selectors decided to to drop experienced players like Unmukt Chand, Milind Kumar and Manan Sharma. Surprisingly, Unmukt led the team in Ranji Trophy last year, and could not find a place in playing XI this year (in most games) due to poor form. Milind was appointed as vice-captain of Delhi before the start of the season but got dropped from playing XI.

Manan was not the choice of selectors in this format due to the presence of Pawan Negi.

Youngster Sarthak Ranjan is expected to open the innings with Gautam Gambhir. Tejas Baroka too is expected to make his debut for Delhi. Though he has already played one competitive game for Gujarat Lions last season in the IPL.

Again, Delhi look an inexperienced side going into the tournament and it will not be an easy task for the team to retain the Zonal Trophy which they won last year under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir.

Squad: Pradeep Sangwan (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Rishabh Pant, Himmat Singh, Dhruv Shorey, Lalit Yadav, Kshitij Sharma, Nitish Rana, Navdeep Saini, Pawan Negi, Kulwant Khejroliya, Tejas Baroka, Subodh Bhati, Gaurav Kumar.

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