Manish Pandey to lead Karnataka in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021

Manish Pandey is all set to lead Karnataka’s 20-man squad for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021-22. The tournament is scheduled to commence on November 4, 2021. The opening pair of Mayank Agarwal and Devdutt Padikkal also made it to the squad named for the group stages of the tournament.

The former has had a splendid run in IPL 2021 wherein he chipped in 441 runs at a healthy average of 40.09 from 12 matches. Padikkal, on the other hand, also had a good season with RCB in this edition of the league. He was the second-highest run-getter for the side scoring 411 runs from 14 matches.

Pandey had missed the last edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy due to a tennis elbow injury. In his absence, Karun Nair was handed over the responsibility of captaining the side in January earlier this year. Pavan Deshpande, who was appointed as the vice-captain of Karnataka for the previous season, hasn’t made the cut this time around.

Karnataka did not have an impressive run in the first ten editions of the tournament. However, the team bounced back stronger to shush the noise around them by clinching back-to-back titles in 2018-19 and then in the 2019-20 season. Owing to a disappointing batting performance in the first quarterfinal of the previous 2020-21 season against Punjab, the team couldn’t make it into the top four.

This time around, with some key names making their return to the side, the team will be all raring to make their impact in the tournament. Karnataka will lock horns with Mumbai for their first match of the tournament on November 4.

Here is Karnataka’s squad for Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2021-22:

Manish Pandey (C), Mayank Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, KV Siddharth, Rohan Kadam, Anirudha Joshi, Abhinav Manohar, Karun Nair, Sharath BR, Nihal Ullal, Shreyas Gopal, Krishnappa Gowtham, Jagadeesha Suchith, Pravin Dubey, KC Cariappa, Prasidh Krishna, Prateek Jain, Vyshak Vijaykumar, MB Darshan, Vidyadhar Patil.

Here is Karnataka’s schedule for Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2021-22:

Match 1: Karnataka v Mumbai, November 4

Match 2: Karnataka v Chhattisgarh, November 5

Match 3: Karnataka v Services, November 6

Match 4: Karnataka v Baroda, November 8

Match 5: Karnataka v Bengal, November 9