Seven TN spikers to play in Club Worlds

Chennai: There will be a strong Tamil Nadu presence in the Ahmedabad Defenders squad as seven players from the state have been picked in the final 15-member contingent for the Volleyball Club World Championships in Bengaluru, TOI has learnt.Eight TN players were set to make the cut, but their key attacker SV Guru Prasanth suffered a knee injury in training, ruling him out of the six-team tournament and dealing a fatal blow to Ahmedabad just days before the start of the global event. “Guru endured an injury during a practice session on Thursday; he is expected to be out for a few months. Ahmedabad tried to bring in Jerome Vinith (another TN player) as Guru’s replacement, but the FIVB (International Volleyball Federation) did not approve the move since Vinith was not named in the provisional squad,” a source told this newspaper.The TN players who will rub shoulders against some of the best in the volleyball business are A Muthusamy, Mohan Ukkrapandian, S Santhosh, S Nandhagopal, R Angamuthu, T Srikanth and R Ramanathan. Three of them – Muthusamy, Ukkrapandian and Santhosh – are part of the national set-up and had represented India at the Hangzhou Asian Games. Interestingly, Ahmedabad’s head coach S Dakshinamoorthy and one of his assistants, R Kamaraj, are also from the southern state.Ahmedabad, the first Indian team to compete at the World Championships, have retained seven members from their Prime Volleyball League (PVL) title-winning squad and have roped in seven other ‘domestic’ players. According to competition rules, teams are allowed to pick players from all clubs in the league that they compete in.Australian outside hitter Max Senica will be the lone foreigner in the Ahmedabad roster after Belarusian blocker Ilya Burau was left out of the final squad. Burau was supposed to reach Bengaluru – the team’s training base – about 10 days ago but faced visa issues and eventually did not make the trip to India.Ahmedabad, placed in Pool A, will begin their campaign with a clash against Itambe Minas of Brazil on December 6 and will face defending champions Sir Sicoma Perugia from Italy in their second and final group match two days later. Squad (15 members): A Muthusamy, Mohan Ukkrapandian, Ashwal Rai, LM Manoj, A Shameemudheen, Srajan Shetty, Max Senica (o), Amit Gulia, S Santhosh, Ashmatullah, S Nandhagopal, R Angamuthu, T Srikanth, R Ramanathan and Parth Patel. Coaching staff: S Dakshinamoorthy, R Kamaraj and Sajad Hussain Malik.
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