Robin Bist named captain for Challengers meet, Vineet Saxena dropped

The Rajasthan state team is set to get a major boost in the upcoming domestic season with middle-order batsman Robin Bist coming back to the fold. Bist had been a lynchpin in the middle for Rajasthan before deciding to shift to Himachal Pradesh. The right-hander who has earlier played for Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Daredevils has now been granted an NOC by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to play for Rajasthan this season.

There’s more good news for the 29-year-old cricketer as he was named the captain of Laxman Singh XI for the senior Challenger Trophy. The tournament will act as the selection trials for the Ranji Trophy and U23 squads. As many as 60 players have made the cut for the tournament which will be played from September 10 to 17. Ashok Menaria, Dishant Yagnik, and Rajesh Bishnoi Sr are the captains of Parthsarthi Sharma, Hanumant Singh, and Suryaveer Singh respectively.

Veteran medium-pacer Pankaj Singh’s name does not feature in the list of the teams, but sources privy to the selection has revealed that the India international will play in a couple of games. “Pankaj Singh will definitely play at least one match for any team,” an official was quoted as saying.

Seasoned opener Vineet Saxena, however, did not find a place. The batsman hasn’t been in form of late and had a mixed season last time around. Also, fitness issues and advancing age accounted to him getting dropped.

Squads:

Parthsarthi Sharma: Ashok Menaria (captain), Amit Gautam,Surya Prakash Suvalka,Shiva Chouhan, , Puneet Yadav (VC), Shivdatt Thakur, Farhan Khan, Azeem Akhtar (WK), Deepak , Chahar,Amit Kumar, Sunil Kumar, C.P .Singh, Rajat Bihani, Kanhaya Lal. Coach: Anshu Jain

Laxman Singh: Robin Bist (captain), DP SIngh, Pranay Sharma, Saurabh Chauhan, Mahipal Lomror (vc), Prabhash Joshi, Sidhartha Saraf, RAjkumar Saini (wk), Tanveer-ulHaq, Shubham Pareek, Deepak Sherawat, Sarthak Rewala, Sandeep Saini, Tejendra Pal Singh, Virendra Moury. Coach: Amit Asawa

Hanumant Singh: Dishant Yagnik (captain) ,Ashok Budhania, Yash Kothari, Dhanraj Yadav , Sidhant Dhobal, Ankit Lamba (vc), Jobanpreet Singh, Arman Khan, K Khaleel Ahmed, Abhimanyu Lamba, Gaurav Sharma, Ajay Singh Kookna, Ravi Sharma, Shubham Sharma. Coach: Harish Joshi.

Suryaveer Singh: Rajesh Bishnoi Sr.(captain) Manendra Singh, Abhijeet Tomar, Manish Sharma, Arjit Gupta (vc), Aditya Gadhwal, Parth Shankar, Chetan Bist (wk),Nathu Singh, Arafat Khan, Bhera Ram, Shantanu Choudhary, Rajesh Bishnoi Jr., Pradeep Jakhar, Hitesh Insa, Kamal Goswami. Coach: Kamal Goswami.