The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Depleted Hyderabad takes on Mumbai

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Depleted Hyderabad takes on Mumbai

Mumbai: V.V.S. Laxman’s sore heel (right) and Pragyan Ojha’s injured shoulder has considerably weakened Hyderabad in its Ranji Trophy Super League campaign against Mumbai, set to start at the Mumbai Cricket Association’s Bandra-Kurla-Complex venue on Tuesday.

Clearly, the stylish Laxman, who scored 224 against Rajasthan, doesn’t want to aggravate the injury and jeopardise his selection for the two-Test series against England. Vijay Bharatiya, the team physio, has said Laxman should be ready to play again in a week or two.

Left-arm spinner Ojha, who has returned to Hyderabad, has been advised to undergo an MRI test to ascertain the precise nature of the injury.

Coach Kanwaljit Singh could not confirm when the injury began to nag Ojha.

“My guess is that it could have happened while going through fielding drills at Cuttack (venue of the fifth one-day international against England),” he said.

Good show

Kanwaljit, admitting that the absence of Laxman and Ojha would be big blows, expressed happiness at the performance of the team in the National championship so far.

“Most of the batsman have scored centuries and the team performance is scaling up. I have advised the players to go out and play the game and not to pay much attention to the big names (Wasim Jaffer, Rohit Sharma and Ajit Agarkar) in the Mumbai team.”

The calm and composed Jaffer, the Mumbai skipper, said Hyderabad has been consistent in the competition

The teams (from):

Hyderabad: Arjun Yadav (captain), D.B. Ravi Teja, T. Suman, S. Anoop Pai, Abhinav Kumar (wk), Ahmed Quadri, S.M. Shoaib, Ashwin Yadav, M. P. Arjun, A. Lalit Mohan, N.A. Khadir, Vijay Goud, Vishal Sharma, Ronald Rodrigues and D. Rushi Raj.

Mumbai: Wasim Jaffer (captain), Ajit Agarkar, Ajinkya Rahane, Vinayak Mane, Amol Muzumdar, Rohit Sharma, Sairaj Bahutule, Ramesh Powar, Vinayak Samant (wk), Dhawal Kulkarni, Usman Malvi, Omkar Khanvilkar, Ankit Chavan, Kshemal Waingankar and Sahil Kukreja.

Umpires: K. Hariharan and Shiva Ravi. Match Referee: Rajendra Jadeja. — Special Correspondent

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