Mayank Agarwal is set to lead Rest of India in the Irani Cup fixture against Madhya Pradesh starting on March 1 in Gwalior.
Dropped from the India test squad, Agarwal finished as the leading run-scorer of the 2022-23 Ranji Trophy season and led Karnataka to the semifinal, where they lost to eventual champions Saurashtra in Bengaluru. Also in the squad is Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran who is in the reckoning for a spot in the India test squad.
In the squad announcement by the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Monday, it was also confirmed that Sarfaraz Khan was unavailable for selection owing to a hairline fracture on his left little finger. As a result, the All-India Senior Selection Committee named Baba Indrajith as his replacement for the tournament.
Leg-spinner Mayank Markande also injured his right index finger during training and was ruled out of the tournament on Tuesday. As a result, Mumbai all-rounder Shams Mulani was announced as replacement for him in the squad.
Meanwhile, in the absence of regular captain Aditya Shrivastava, wicketkeeper-batter Himanshu Mantri will lead Madhya Pradesh, reported ESPNCricinfo. Other known names in the squad include Rajat Patidar, Venkatesh Iyer and Avesh Khan.
RoI squad: Mayank Agarwal (Captain), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Yash Dhull, Baba Indrajith, Upendra Yadav(wk), Atit Sheth, Saurabh Kumar, Harvik Desai, Navdeep Saini, Mukesh Kumar, Chetan Sakariya, Akash Deep, Shams Mulani, Pulkit Narang, Sudip Kumar Gharami
Madhya Pradesh: Himanshu Mantri (capt & wk), Rajat Patidar, Yash Dubey, Harsh Gawli, Shubham Sharma, Venkatesh Iyer, Akshat Raghuwanshi, Aman Solanki, Kumar Kartikeya, Saransh Jain, Avesh Khan, Ankit Kushwah, Gaurav Yadav, Anubhav Agarwal, Mihir Hirwani
