Ranji Trophy: Mumbai replace injured Ankolekar with young SRH pacer Tarmale

MUMBAI: Mumbai's spin department seems to be heavily jinxed at the moment.A bad leg injury, which forced young left-arm spinner Atharva Ankolekar to leave the field on a stretcher while he hurt himself while fielding on the boundary on Friday has left Mumbai with just one spinner in their ongoing Ranji Trophy away match against Hyderabad.“Ankolekar has torn his ligament and is ruled out of action for the rest of the domestic season. He will be replaced by pacer Onkar Tarmale in the XI for this match. Since the BCCI rules on ‘Serious Injury Replacement’ allow for the substitute to be only from the 15-man squad, we had no choice to replace a spinner with a pacer, since there are no additional spinners left in the 15 now," a source in the Mumbai Cricket Association told TOI on Friday.The 23-year-old Tarmale, who played four List A matches for Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare Trophy recently will thus make his first-class debut on Saturday.Ankolekar had replaced senior Shams Mulani on the morning of the match, after a "urine issue" ruled out the left-arm spinning allrounder.Before the match, off-spinning allrounder Tanush Kotian had to return from Hyderabad due to a hand injury. Replacing Mulani after the latter was ruled out on the morning of the match, Ankolekar made 35 not out off 22 balls, with five fours and a six, as Mumbai, riding on Sarfaraz Khan's superb double century (227 off 219 balls) piled up 560 but hasn't bowled a single over in Hyderabad's innings so far. In fact, his participation in the match is under doubt. "He’s currently in the hospital for tests. The problem is that as per the BCCI's 'serious injury replacement' rules, only a like-for-like replacement can be allowed for Ankolekar from the squad. We don't have any spinner in the squad now," a source in the MCA told TOI. Meanwhile, it's learnt that Mulani had blood in his urine and was also experiencing severe back pain. He had to thus withdraw from the match on Day One morning with Ankolekar being rushed to replace him. "Mulani has returned to Mumbai and has undergone a few tests to determine if he is suffering from a urine infection or kidney stones,” a source said.Tarmale, who hails from Shere, Shahapur Taluka 60km off Mumbai, was picked up by the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL-2026 auction in Nov for Rs 30 lakhs.