Vinay Kumar, Mithun ruled out of UP tie

Karnataka were dealt a double blow ahead of their third Ranji Trophy Group B clash against Uttar Pradesh after their skipper and pace spearhead R Vinay Kumar and his new-ball partner Abhimanyu Mithun were ruled out of the Nov 17-20 match in Meerut.

All-rounder Stuart Binny will lead the side in Vinay’s absence while Manish Pandey has been named his deputy.

While Vinay is suffering from a hamstring injury, Mithun has sustained a Grade I back strain. “Looking at the long season ahead, we didn’t want to aggravate their injuries, so we decided to give both of them a break to recover well,” said State selection committee chairman J Abhiram. 

Pacer SL Akshay, who made his Ranji debut last season, and another new face HS Sharath have replaced Vinay and Mithun. The duo will join Belgaum paceman Ronit More in the squad.  The selectors have also dropped Sunil Raju from the squad, replacing him with another off-spinning all-rounder -- K Gowtham.

After conceding lead to Baroda in their opener, Karnataka did extremely well to earn the first-innings honours against Tamil Nadu in a high-scoring match to take their points tally to four.  

The squad: Stuart Binny (captain), Manish Pandey (vice-captain), Robin Uthappa, KB Pawan, Ganesh Satish, Amit Verma, CM Gautam (wk), KP Appanna, Ronit More, HS Sharath, K Gowtham, SL Akshay, Kunal Kapoor, KL Rahul, SK Moinuddin. Batting coach: J Arunkumar; Bowling coach: Mansur Ali Khan; Manager: Fazal Khaleel; Physios: Shravan, Jaba Prabhu; Video Analyst: BM Santosh.