Chipli, Appanna back in favour

The 16-member side, announced here on Friday for the first two matches against Rajasthan (in Udaipur from Nov 3) and Railways (in Delhi from Nov 10), will be led by pace spearhead R Vinay Kumar while Ganesh Satish will be his deputy.

The three new players to get the nod from the J Abhiram-led State Senior selection committee are off-spinner K Gowtham, left-arm spinner SK Moinuddin and right-arm paceman SL Akshay.

Chipli, who last played a first-class match for the State in 2008 against Tamil Nadu, has been picked ahead of some of the other promising youngsters.

“Looking at his performances in the last one year, we thought Chipli deserved another chance but other youngsters are very much in contention,” said committee chairman Abhiram.

Appanna too makes a comeback after a gap of two years. The 22-year-old’s last appearance was in 2009 against Saurashtra at Rajkot. With veteran left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi out of the scheme of things, the Kodava lad will in likelihood be the lead spinner.

The squad: R Vinay Kumar (capt), Robin Uthappa, KB Pawan, Manish Pandey, Ganesh Satish  (vice-capt), Amit Verma, Stuart Binny, CM Gautam (wk), KP Appanna, Abhimanyu Mithun, S Arvind, Bharath Chipli, SK Moinuddin, Sunil Raju, SL Akshay, Gowtham K.

Coach: K Jeshwanth; Assistant coach: Somashekar Shiraguppi; Manager: R Sudhakar Rao; Physio: Vinod Jain; Trainer: Shravan; Video analyst: Santhosh.