Vijay Hazare Trophy 2021: Shreyas Iyer named the Mumbai captain; No place for Arjun Tendulkar

After days and days of speculation, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) finally announced that instead of the Ranji Trophy, the Indian domestic season will have only a Vijay Hazare Trophy. As the premier 50-over competition is around the corner, Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on Wednesday announced a 22-member squad.

Shreyas Iyer, who has now become a regular in the Indian ODI team, has been named the captain of the team. While Prithvi Shaw, who was recently dropped from the Indian Test squad has been named the vice-captain of the team. The squad also includes the likes of Suryakumar Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Aditya Tare, Shivam Dube, Tushar Deshpande, and Sarfaraz Khan. 

Mumbai so far has had a terrible domestic season. In the recently concluded Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, Mumbai managed to win only one match out of the five which they played. The horrible season has also resulted in dropping some players. Sachin Tendulkar’s son, Arjun, who played two of those five matches, has not found a place in the 22-member squad. 

Ramesh Powar named the new Mumbai head coach

The MCA had announced a camp ahead of the selections, where 100 players were asked to come and have a few sessions. It is expected that the performances and learnings by the coaches have been taken into consideration while choosing the squad. Recently, Ramesh Powar, the former Indian spinner was named the head coach of Mumbai. This happened after Amit Pagnis stepped down as the coach after the group stage exit in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament.  

The Vijay Hazare Trophy 2021 will begin on February 20. The tournament will be held across six venues in India, namely, Kolkata, Surat, Tamil Nadu, Jaipur, Bangalore, and Indore. The knockout stages will be played from March 8, with the final to be played on March 14. 

Mumbai’s squad for Vijay Hazare Trophy: Shreyas Iyer (c), Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Akhil Herwadkar, Sarfaraz Khan, Chinmay Sutar, Aditya Tare, Hardik Tamore, Shivam Dube, Aakash Parkar, Atif Attarwala, Shams Mulani, Atharva Ankolekar, Sairaj Patil, Sujit Nayak, Tanush Kotian, Prashant Solanki, Dhaval Kulkarni, Tushar Deshpande, Siddharth Raut, and Mohit Awasthi