Ranji Trophy 2015-16 champions, Mumbai are geared up for a face-off against the visiting New Zealand team in a three-day warm-up game at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi from September 16.
However, Mumbai will be without their top two run-getters of the 2015-16 season – Shreyas Iyer and Akhil Herwadkar, who are part of the India A squad in Australia. Mumbai will also be missing the services of key bowlers – Dhawal Kulkarni and Shardul Thakur, who are also part of the same team. The current circumstances will therefore give the side an opportunity to display their skills on a bigger platform when they take the field against New Zealand. As they look forward to take on the Kane Williamson-led team, Mumbai are boosted by the presence of Rohit Sharma in the squad.
“It is a good exposure to our bench strength. They are all in line whenever we have players going for national duty or get injured. We always have a bench which is good to play for Mumbai and it is a great opportunity for them as well to try and force themselves into the playing 11 in the coming season,” said captain Aditya Tare ahead of the game.
While Mumbai are traditionally used to playing without key players, who move on to represent the country, they have also tested visiting national sides. “In the past Mumbai teams have done well against Australia. They have always given a tough fight to visiting teams. We try and draw inspiration from those sides and give our best and try and give them a great fight,” said the Mumbai skipper while looking forward to the contest.
With the teams set to play their Ranji Trophy matches at neutral venues in the 2016-17, the match against New Zealand will be good practice for the domestic team as well. “It is a great opportunity for us specially given the fact that we going to play all our games away from home. It’s a great start. To start of the season, we are going to play a quality team and it is great for us to have skills tested against a Test team. I am very happy with the sort of game that we have got now before the Ranji Trophy,” he elaborated.
Coming into the game, the Mumbai team have played multi-day matches in the KSCA tournament which has helped them get in to the groove for playing the longest format of the game mentioned the captain. “In July, we went to Mysore and Bangalore to play the KSCA tournament. We did play four four-day games. I think our preparations are going well and that was a great tournament to start off with and again this game just before the Ranji Trophy.”
Mumbai squad: Aditya Tare (captain and wicketkeeper), Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jay Bista, Siddhesh Lad, Armaan Jaffer, Kaustubh Pawar, Vishal Dabholkar (left-arm spinner), Vijay Gohil (left-arm spinner), Parikshit Valsangakar (leg-spinner), Balwinder Sandhu (pacer), Roystan Dias (left-arm pacer), Tushar Deshpande (pacer), Harshal Soni (pacer) and Sufiyan Sheikh.
