Off-spinning all-rounder C Raghu will lead Karnataka in the Buchi Babu all-India invitation tournament in Chennai from Thursday. The selection committee, which met under new chairman Raghuram Bhat, picked a 15-member squad with a fair sprinkling of new faces, with regular skipper Yere Goud and medium-pacer R Vinay Kumar being rested.

Pace duo
The Mangalore pace duo of Mohammad Arif and Umesh Karvi, and off-spinner Ryan Ninan figure in the squad after impressing in the KSCA all-India invitation tournament. All-rounder Gaurav Dhiman, who had a five-wicket haul and two half-centuries in the same tournament, and Deepak Chougule, who had decent outings with the bat, appear to have been given the short shrift.

Left-arm spinner KP Appanna and middle-order batsman Manish Pandey, part of the India under-19 team that toured Sri Lanka, have walked into the side.

Binny gets call-up
Stuart Binny, out of action for months due to a shoulder surgery, gets a look-in based on his two good knocks in the tournament. Bhat, however, was quick to dismiss the notion that Chougule and Dhiman had been dropped, adding that the duo would get their chances in the Moin-ud-Dowla Trophy in Hyderabad next month.

“We still have two more tournaments (Moin-ud-Dowla and Safi Darashah in Bangalore) before the domestic season begins. We wanted to test all our league performers at such tournaments. We are trying everyone out on a rotation basis so that we get a set of players who can form the State side in the coming season,” explained Bhat.

Team: C Raghu (captain), VS Thilak Naidu, Bharath Chipli, KB Pawan, Manish Pandey, Rahu Bhatkal, Ryan Ninan, KP Appanna, Devraj Patil, Md Arif, Amit Verma, Stuart Binny, Ganesh Sartish, Umesh Karvi, S Arvind. Coach: Rajesh Kamath. Physio: Ramakanth.