Veteran pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has not been named in Uttar Pradesh’s squad for the upcoming Ranji Trophy season. UP will commence their campaign on October 11 as they lock horns with Bengal. The former India bowler made his first-class appearance after six years earlier in January.
End of road for Bhuvneshwar Kumar?
While Kumar is already out of the scheme of the national selectors, it remains to be seen what will he his future with the red-ball format in the domestic circuit. The decision of the selection committee might be an indication of their willingness to look at other options than the 35-year-old. Yash Dayal, who received his maiden call-up to the Test side for IND vs BAN series, has been named in the squad announced for the initial round of matches.
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Bhuvneshwar Kumar has bagged 231 wickets in 72 first-class games that he has played to date. With a best spell of 8/41, he has taken 13 five-wicket hauls in the domestic circuit with the red ball. He has made some handy contribution with the bat as well, having amassed 2445 runs with one hundred and 14 centuries.
When it comes to Tests, Bhuvneshwar Kumar last played for India in 2018 and has been out of the favour of selectors since then. After playing for the side consistently for five years from 2013 to 2018, Kumar’s poor form and the availability of other talented bowlers led to the veteran being sidelined. His last T20I and ODI matches both came in 2022 as well. With his snub from the red-ball squad, it remains to be seen if Bhuvneshwar will now turn his attention to white-ball formats and different leagues across the country.
UP squad for Ranji Trophy
Aryan Juyal (c, wk), Swastik Chikara, Priyam Garg, Akshdeep Nath, Nitish Rana, Saurabh Kumar, Ankit Rajpoot, Aaqib Khan, Vipraj Nigam, Yash Dayal, Shivam Sharma, Siddhartha Yadav, Madhav Kaushik, Vijay Kumar, Aaditya Sharma (Wk), Kritagya Singh; Standby: Atal Bihari Rai, Prince Yadav, Abhishek Goswami, Vineet Panwar, Vaibhav Chaudhary, Kartikey Jaiswal
