Irani Cup: Shreyas Iyer and Mukesh Kumar take center stage as Mumbai prepares to battle Rest of India

After the ongoing second Test against Bangladesh in Kanpur, India will be participating in eight more Test matches. Three of these matches will be played on home soil against New Zealand, while the remaining five will take place in Australia. These matches are crucial for India's bid to qualify for next year’s World Test Championship final.

The Irani Cup between Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai and Rest of India, starting here on Tuesday, will offer an opportunity for some players to stake their claim in the India side. Most of the players in the two teams featured in the recently concluded Duleep Trophy and are in rhythm, which promises a hard-fought contest.

Mumbai will miss young batter Musheer Khan, who is out following injuries suffered in a car accident a few days ago. Skipper Ajinkya Rahane thus will carry extra responsibility in the middle order while the national selectors will also keep an eye on Shreyas Iyer, who hit two half-centuries in the Duleep Trophy.

Rest of India is studded with in-form players. They hold the edge, but beating Mumbai in red-ball cricket may not be easy on the slow pitch at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium.

Iyer, 29, was in the Test squad earlier in the year, but things changed after his removal from BCCI’s central contract. After that he led Kolkata Knight Riders to IPL triumph, made his return to ODI cricket and was made skipper of the India D squad.

It will however be Iyer’s batting that will be closely monitored. The Mumbai batter has faced criticism for his batting in the recent past and would hope to play a big knock in the Irani Cup and return into Test contention.

Iyer batted aggressively in the Duleep Trophy and that saw him lose his wicket cheaply at times. It suggests there’s room for improvement, which he needs to focus on this week, and in the Ranji Trophy that follows.

The selectors will also monitor Rest of India’s Madhya Pradesh batter Ricky Bhui, star performer for India D in the Duleep Trophy. He has been doing well in domestic cricket for some time now but has not been in the scheme of things of the selectors.

In the three Duleep Trophy matches he played, the 28-year-old scored 359 runs, including two centuries. The Bhopal-born cricketer was the tournament’s leading run-scorer.

Experienced pacer Mukesh Kumar, who took 15 wickets in the Duleep Trophy for India B to finish with the second highest tally in the tournament, will hope to extend his form and push for a spot in the series against New Zealand. The 30-year-old, who has played three Tests, missed out on a berth for the Bangladesh series while Akash Deep was picked as the third seamer in the India eleven.

On Monday, before joining the Rest of India squad in the evening, left-arm pacer Yash Dayal had a long bowling session under India bowling coach Morne Morkel’s supervision at Green Park in Kanpur, during the lunch break on the fourth day of the India-Bangladesh second Test.

Squads

Mumbai: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Prithvi Shaw, Ayush Mhatre, Sarfaraz Khan, Shreyas Iyer, Siddhesh Lad, Suryansh Shedge, Hardik Tamore (wk), Sidhaant Addhatrao (wk), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Himanshu Singh, Shardul Thakur, Mohit Avasthi, Mohammad Juned Khan, Royston Dias.

Rest of India: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vc), Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Manav Suthar, Saransh Jain, Prasidh Krishna, Mukesh Kumar, Yash Dayal, Ricky Bhui, Shashwat Rawat, Khaleel Ahmed, Rahul Chahar.