Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017/18: Karnataka Name KL Rahul For First Two Games, No Stuart Binny

Karnataka have included batsman KL Rahul in the 16-member squad for their first two games of Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017/18. He is not a part of team India’s ODI side and returned to the country after playing the Test series. He was available for a couple of List A games, hence, the state association included him in the squad.

Though he will be returning to South Africa after few days to join the T20I team. Along with him, Suresh Raina and Jaydev Unadkat will also be flying to the country.

Interestingly, Karnataka have not named Stuart Binny in the team. His exclusion from the team has come as a big surprise. Last year too, Karnataka took some tough calls when they dropped Abhimanyu Mithun and Robin Uthappa, after which the latter switched his base to Saurashtra.

R Vinay Kumar has been retained as captain of the side for the tournament while Karun Nair will continue to assist him.

Mayank Agarwal, Ravikumar Samarth, CM Gautam are few of the key members in the side.

The side also includes all-rounders, Shreyas Gopal and Krishnappa Gowtham. The latter recently drew limelight in the IPL auction when he was sold to Rajasthan Royals for a record price of Rs. 6.20 Crore. Last year too, he highlighted the auction when he was bought by Mumbai Indians for Rs 2 Crore. Though he did not play a single game.

The pace bowling responsibilities will be shared by the skipper, R Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun and Prasidh Krishna.

Karnataka will face Baroda, Assam, Haryana, Punjab, Odisha, and Railways in the league stage games. They will play all their games in Bengaluru. The selectors will announce a new squad after two matches, which might not have KL Rahul.

Here is the Karnataka’s squad –

1. Vinay Kumar (C),
2. Karun Nair (VC),
3. Mayank Agarwal,
4. Ravikumar Samarth,
5. Anirudha Joshi,
6. Ritesh Bhatkal,
7. CM Gautam (WK),
8. Shreyas Gopal,
9. Krishnappa Gowtham,
10. Abhimanyu Mithun,
11. Pradeep T,
12. Pavan Deshpande,
13. Prasidh Krishna,
14. KL Rahul,
15. Praveen Dubey,
16. Jagadeesha Suchith