Tamil Nadu on Wednesday named a strong team comprising ace off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and experienced players Dinesh Karthik and Abhinav Mukund for the next two Ranji Trophy games against Mumbai and Railways.
The team, led by Vijay Shankar, will take on Mumbai at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai from January 11. They meet Railways from January 19. Ashwin, who played the first two matches of the season – defeats against Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh – returns to the squad for the crucial game against Mumbai.
Dinesh Karthik and opener Mukund too are back after having missed three matches. They featured in the first match against Karnataka. Test discard Murali Vijay, however, is not part of the squad, having missed out since the season-opener against Karnataka at Dindigul.
According to a TNCA press release, the team includes Ashwin and two other spinners, R Sai Kishore and M Siddharth and pacers in T Natarajan and K Vignesh.
Squad
Vijay Shankar (c), Abhinav Mukund, Ganga Sridhar Raju, Surya Prakash, Kaushik Gandhi, B Aparajith, Dinesh Karthik, R Ashwin, R Sai Kishore, M Siddharth, T Natarajan, N Jagadeesan, K Vignesh, K Mukunth, Pradosh Ranjan Paul.