No room for Aditya Tare despite good form

Parsee Gymkhana’s Aditya Tare during the Talim Shield final against Payyade Sports Club at MIG, Bandra, recently. Pic/Suresh Karkera

Mumbai's Ranji Trophy-winning team skipper and wicketkeeper-batsman Aditya Tare was dropped from the Vijay Hazare Trophy team that was announced by the Mumbai Cricket Association on their website on Thursday.

Young bowling all-rounder Shams Mulani has been handed the captaincy in the absence of seniors like Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav and Prithvi Shaw, who are all away on national duty.

Salil Ankola

However, Tare, 34, who scored three half-centuries in the Madhav Mantri Centenary One-Day League which included a match-winning 74-ball 99 in the final against Karnatak SA held on Wednesday, has not been picked in the 20-member Mumbai squad.

Defending champions Mumbai, placed in Elite Group ‘B', begin their campaign against Tamil Nadu at Trivandrum on December 8. It is learnt that a member of the Salil Ankola-led senior Mumbai selection committee has informed Tare about the decision.

Young wicketkeeper-batsmen Hardik Tamore and Prasad Pawar have been selected with experienced pacer Dhawal Kulkarni, batsman Siddhesh Lad, all-rounder Shivam Dube and opener Yashasvi Jaiswal being the other prominent names. Tare was the second highest scorer (299 from eight games) after skipper Shaw (827 runs) last season when Mumbai won the domestic one-day tournament.

Tare had also led Mumbai to their 41st Ranji Trophy title, beating Saurashtra by an innings and 21 runs at Pune in 2015-16. "We will miss him [Tare] obviously. He has been an amazing ambassador of the game for Mumbai. He has done so well. We will miss his experience. He's like a leader to us, but we need to move forward and promote the young talent which we have," Mulani, who has earlier led Mumbai in U-19, U-23 and at the recent Oman tour, told mid-day on Thursday.