Mumbai chief selector Salil Ankola: I want Tushar Deshpande to be fully fit

Tushar Deshpande and Salil Ankola

Mumbai on Tuesday announced their 21-member squad for the Ranji Trophy which will be conducted after a year's gap. However, their gun bowler Tushar Deshpande missed out despite fully recovering from a rib injury.

Chief selector Salil Ankola spelt out why Deshpande could not make it. "In the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 [tournament], he had a side strain and missed half the tour. After coming back, he practised with the Indian Test team [at the MCA-BKC ground]. The strain got worse. He went to the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he fractured his rib.

"He is a good bowler, but we can't have him breaking down regularly. We want him to be fully fit first. Missing out regularly is not good for his confidence as well as for the team set up. Let him play a couple of matches, where he will be able to bowl long spells. What people don't understand is that once the injury gets chronic, it becomes a part and parcel of your game. The knockouts are there [ahead] anyway. It is for his own good," Ankola told mid-day. Deshpande has been regularly having match simulations with the Mumbai team.

The 41-time champions are in the Elite D group and will play their league games at Ahmedabad. They will be led by India Test opener Prithvi Shaw, as reported by mid-day on Tuesday. Ankola & Co decided to stick with Prithvi despite the availability of senior India Test cricketer, Ajinkya Rahane. "We had selected the team [before the tournament got postponed] and we picked Prithvi as captain. Changing the captain just because Ajinkya was available wouldn't have sent out the right message. In fact, when I spoke to Ajinkya about his availability and the captaincy, he was absolutely fine about Prithvi leading the side. He [Rahane] is a very seasoned player and Mumbai are lucky to have him play the Ranji Trophy," said Ankola.

Mumbai squad
P Shaw (captain), Y Jaiswal, A Rahane, A Gomel, A Jaffer, S Khan, Sachin Yadav, A Tare (wk), H Tamore (wk), S Dube, Aman Khan, S Mulani, T Kotian, P Solanki, S Attarde, D Kulkarni, M Awasthi, P Badiani, S Raut, R Dias and A Tendulkar.