Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane part of MCA's 45-member Ranji probables

The Mumbai Cricket Association senior selection committee has announced a strong 45-member probable squad for the upcoming Ranji season. The squad boasts of names such as Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Prithvi Shaw, and Shardul Thakur. While all these names were expected in the list, Akhil Herwadkar’s omission from the list is a little surprising.

The southpaw is naturally disappointed and has left the Mumbai team, to play for another. If speculations are to be believed, then he will turn out for Puducherry. The 45-member squad was announced on Monday, July 12. Salil Ankola (chairman) along with Ghulam Parkar, Sunil More, Anand Yalvigi, and Prasad Desai announced a full-strength squad with a lot of national players among it, who could possibly not get to play in any of the games, owing to a packed schedule.

The Maharashtra Cricket (MCA) is awaiting clearance from the Maharashtra government to provide SOPs before they can start training and other practice games in the cities. Apart from that, they will also announce a start date for camp and assemble players for the same.

“We want to start the camp early. Last year, there was a bit of delay and it reflected in our performance in Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament (Mumbai had failed to reach the knock-outs of the tournament). As the BCCI has already announced the domestic schedule, we want to have the players ready and fit soon,” Ankola told Cricbuzz.

Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane might not get to play the Ranji game

Well, the inclusion of two Test superstars in Rahane and Sharma will no doubt give the Mumbai side a boost, but the players’ availability is still in doubt. With India finishing the UK tour on September 14, the players will immediately get involved in the second half of the 14^th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

After that Sharma will feature in ICC T20 World Cup set to be held in November. While Rahane is out of the radar in the T20 format, but his participation is also in doubt for the Ranji 2021-22 season.

Mumbai Probables: Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Prithvi Shaw, Dhaval Kulkarni, Shivam Dube, Aditya Tare, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Arjun Tendulkar, Siddhesh Lad, Aakarshit Gomel, Pragnesh Kanpillewar, Divyansh Saxena, Chinmay Sutar, Arman Jaffer, Suved Parkar, Bhupen Lalwani, Hardik Tamore, Akash Parkar, Aman Khan, Shubham Ranjane, Sujit Nayak, Sairaj Patil, Prasad Pawar, Shams Mulani, Atharva Ankolekar, Dhrumil Matkar, Shreyas Gurav, Tanush Kotian, Ankush Jaiswal, Shashank Attarde, Prashant Solanki, Parikshit Valsangkar, Tushar Deshpande, Mohit Awasthi, Nikhil Date, Roystan Dias, Atif Attarwala, Siddharth Raut, Kruthik Hanagawadi, Deepak Shetty and Ravi Solanki.