Vijay Hazare Trophy: Out-of-form Siddhesh Lad dropped from Mumbai team

Siddhesh Lad. Pic/Satej Shinde

Former captain Siddhesh Lad, 28, known as Mumbai's crisis man for his fighting knocks, has been dropped from the Mumbai senior side for the upcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy. The Salil Ankola-led selection committee picked a 22-member squad led by Shreyas Iyer for the 50-over tournament.

India discard Prithvi Shaw will be Iyer's deputy in Jaipur, where Mumbai are placed in Elite Group ‘D' for the tournament that starts on February 20. Lad, who has scored 4,058 runs in 61 first-class games at 40.58 has 1,124 runs under his belt in 38 List ‘A' games at 43.23. However, his feeble total of 27 runs in four Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy games went against him. However, the selectors persisted with other experienced campaigners like Suryakumar Yadav (75 in five games), Aditya Tare (56 in four) and pacer Dhawal Kulkarni (wicketless in four games).

Though most players selected themselves after playing three selection matches, it is learnt that much time in the selection meeting (held at the Mumbai Cricket Association's Bandra-Kurla complex ground on Wednesday morning) was spent discussing Lad, Arjun Tendulkar, all-rounder Sairaj Patil and batsman Chinmay Sutar.
Left-arm pacer Tendulkar missed out on the Jaipur trip, while Patil and Sutar found themselves in the team. Pacer Mohit Awasthi, off-spinner Tanush Kotian, leg-spinner Prashant Solanki, left-arm pacer Atif Attarwala and pacer Siddharth Raut are other selected players, who were not in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy squad.