Pandey blow to Karnataka

The right-hander, who slammed his maiden first-class double ton against Mumbai in Karnataka’s previous Group ‘A’ clash at Brabourne, felt pain during the Mumbai game both while batting and fielding. Upon arrival in Bangalore, the 21-year-old consulted two specialists before he was advised immediate surgery. It is learnt that Pandey will require four to six weeks to complete his recovery and recuperation by which time the Ranji Trophy will have reached its business end.

“It’s really unfortunate,” said Karnataka Senior Selection Committee chairman J Abhiram, rueing Pandey’s unavailability for at least the rest of the league phase. “He was in great form and was being noticed by everyone. The injury couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
Pandey struck a half-century in Karnataka’s opening match against Rajasthan before authoring a masterly unbeaten 200 to help his team dominate Mumbai.

Another talented youngster Karun Nair has been drafted in in place of Pandey. “Karun has been in fine form this year, and so we decided to give him the opportunity. We also discussed KL Rahul and Kunal Kapoor and I am sure they will get their chances too in the near future,” added Abhiram.

Meanwhile, middle-order batsman Ganesh Satish has been named to lead Karnataka in their fourth-round match against Saurashtra beginning Tuesday here at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The right-hander steps in for regular skipper R Vinay Kumar who will be with the Indian one-day squad for the five-match series against the West Indies.  

The squad: Ganesh Satish (capt), Robin Uthappa, Pavan KB, Bharath Chipli, Amit Verma, Stuart Binny, CM Gautham (wk), Sunil Raju, Abhimanyu Mithun, S Arvind, KP Appanna, Akshay SL, SK Moinuddin, KJ Gowtham, Karun Nair. Coach: K Jeshwanth; Assistant coach: Somashekar Shiraguppi; Manager: R Sudhakar Rao; Physios: Shravan and Vinod Jain; Trainer: Abhinav Kumar; Video analyst: Santhosh.