Ashwin, Murali Vijay not included in Tamil Nadu squad for semis

Tamil Nadu is all set to take on Mumbai in the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy 2016-17. However, they will be without the services of opener Murali Vijay and ace spinner Ravichandran Ashwin. This certainly is a big blow for the southern side who recently defeated the southern rivals Karnataka in the quarter-finals. Incidentally, both Vijay and Ashwin had missed out on that match as well despite being in the preliminary squad.

As per Sportskeeda, both players are yet to recover from their respective injuries. Ashwin is down with sports hernia after being a key member of the long Indian home season. Murali Vijay, on the other hand, had injured his shoulder during the last Test against England at Chennai.

Vijay had batted in the middle order in the second innings of the match. Despite missing both the star players the Tamil Nadu team had managed to wrap up the quarter-finals against Karnataka in just 2 days. They will be hoping for the likes of Dinesh Karthik and Abhinav Mukund to provide the much-needed experience against the defending champions Mumbai in the semi-finals.

One of the senior Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) official quoted, “as of now they are not part of the TN team and they have not been declared fit yet. The squad that was picked for the quarterfinal match against Karnataka has been retained. The players will leave for Rajkot on Wednesday.”

In the quarter-finals, it was the bowling duo of K Vignesh and Aswin Crist, who were instrumental in carving the win for Tamil Nadu. While they had a convincing win, the Mumbai team had a hard earned win over Hyderabad in their quarter-final match. The two sides will clash on January 1 in the semi-finals at the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) Stadium in Rajkot.

Tamil Nadu Squad for Semis against Mumbai:

Abhinav Mukund (C), Vijay Shankar (vc), L Suryaprakash, Kaushik Gandhi, B Inderjith, Dinesh Karthick, B Aparajith, Aswin Crist, K Vignesh, Aushik Srinivas, T Natarajan, N Jagadeesan, Ganga Sridhar Raju, Rahil Shah and Malolan Rangarajan.