Irani Cup: Chance for youngsters to prove mettle

NAGPUR: The five-day Irani Cup tiebetween 38-time Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai and the Rest of India, starting onThursday, offers the youngsters in both teams the ideal chance to showcase theirmettle.The opening long-duration match of the domestic season alsoprovides Rest skipper Virender Sehwag, out of cricketing action since Maybecause of a shoulder injury, an ideal platform to ease his way back into thebig-time cricket ahead of the hectic international season. ForMumbai captain and opener Wasim Jaffer and middle order batsman Rohit Sharma,both India discards, the tie is yet another opportunity to remind the nationalselectors of their abilities. Munaf Patel and S Sreesanth are twoother pacers who would be eager to catch the selectors' eyes and get back intothe Indian team by spearheading the Rest pace bowling. With Sehwagat the top of the order but without much match practice, Rest seem to hold anedge in their well-balanced attack that will be without Irfan Pathan who is outwith an injury and has been replaced by UP youngster Bhuvneshwar Kumar.Sehwag will get the chance to test how good his shoulder is aftersurgery and will have the support of his vice-captain S Badrinath and M Vijayand Manoj Tiwari - in the main - to build up sizeable scores.Mumbai,on the other hand, are without experienced campaigners Amol Muzumdar and SairajBahutule - who have moved to other states - as well as all rounder AbhishekNayar, who is in South Africa for the Champions Trophy. Theirbatting revolves around the powers of concentration of Jaffer, in the main, withsupport from fellow-opener Sahil Kukreja and stroke-players Ajinkya Rahane andRohit Sharma. Seasoned Ajit Agarkar and upcoming Dhaval Kulkarniwould lead the pace attack with rookie bowler Saurabh Netravalkar to play thesupportive role while the portly Ramesh Powar and left arm slow bowler IqbalAbdulla are the spin options. Virender Sehwag (capt), M Vijay, S Badrinath (vice-capt), ManojTiwari, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddiman Saha (wk), S Sreesanth,Munaf Patel, Pragyan Ojha, Kedar Jadav, Abhinav Mukund, Uday Kaul and SudeepTyagi. Wasim Jaffer(capt), Ajit Agarkar (vice-capt), Sahil Kukreja, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma,Prashant Naik, Vinayak Samant (wk), Ramesh Powar, Iqbal Abdulla, DhavalKulkarni, Rahil Shaikh, Murtuza Hussain, Sushant Marathe, Saurabh Netravalkarand Onkar Khanvilkar.