Gaikwad and Shaw included in Maharashtra's squad for Buchi Babu tournament

Pune, Aug 14 (IANS) Right-handed batter Ruturaj Gaikwad and Prithvi Shaw have been named in Maharashtra’s 17-member squad for the All India Buchi Babu Invitational Tournament happening in Chennai from August 18 to September 9.

Senior batter Ankit Bawane will lead the side in the competition, which offers Shaw his first major opportunity to turn out for Maharashtra after moving on from Mumbai ahead of the new domestic cricket season.

Shaw, 25, will be aiming to revive his cricketing career after his fitness and discipline issues saw him being dropped from the Mumbai squad in the Ranji Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy competitions last season.

Gaikwad, who featured in India A’s tour games before the Test series in England, is also set to return to domestic action after pulling out of his county championship stint with Yorkshire at the last minute.

Both Gaikwad, who has been practising at his IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings’ High Performance Centre in Chennai, and wicketkeeper Saurabh Nawale are expected to leave after Maharashtra’s opening match to join the West Zone squad for the Duleep Trophy semi-final, happening at the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) grounds in Bengaluru on September 4.

The Buchi Babu Invitational tournament, revived in 2023, will feature 16 teams this year, up from 12 in the past two editions. The 16 teams have been split evenly into four groups. The league stage format has been tweaked from four-day to three-day matches, with each team playing three games and a rest day in between the matches.

All matches will be played in Chennai and livestreamed on the TNCA YouTube channel. Maharashtra are in Group A of the competition alongside TNCA President’s XI, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Maharashtra squad: Ankit Bawane (c), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Prithvi Shaw, Siddhesh Veer, Sachin Dhas, Arshin Kulkarni, Harshal Kate, Siddharth Mhatre, Saurabh Nawale (wk), Mandar Bhandari (wk), Ramakrishna Ghosh, Mukesh Choudhary, Pradeep Dadhe, Vicky Ostwal, Hitesh Walunj, Prashant Solanki, Rajvardhan Hangargekar.

--IANS

nr/ab