MUMBAI: After Jay Bista decided to play for Uttarakhand last season, Mumbai have lost another opener this time. Akhil Herwadkar has decided to leave Mumbai, and had conveyed to the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) that he’ll play for another state in the forthcoming domestic season.
“We’ve given him the No-objection certificate (NOC),” MCA secretary Sanjay Naik told TOI on Monday. In 38 first-class matches, the left-hander has scored 2,399 runs @ an average of 37.48, with seven hundreds and nine fifties. The 26-year-old also played 27 List A games (874 runs, two centuries, two fifties, average: 34.96) and 14 T20 matches (282 runs@20.14, one fifty).
At one point, Herwadkar played for India A, and was looked as a Test prospect, but sadly, the batsman couldn’t maintain his consistency, nor his spot in the Mumbai team later. Having made his debut in 2011, He played his last game for Mumbai in the Ranji giant’s defeat at Wankhede Stadium in 2018.
Herwadkar’s name was missing from a list of 45 players picked for a fitness camp by Mumbai’s newly-appointed senior selection committee, led by former India pacer Salil Ankola, on Monday. The dates of which will be announced when covid restrictions are lifted by the state government.
Meanwhile, the selectors named India’s limited overs batsman Shreyas Iyer for the fitness camp. Iyer had missed the first half of the IPL due a shoulder injury, which forced him to undergo a surgery in April. The Delhi Capitals skipper is recovering at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore, and is supposed to be fit for the next leg of the IPL in UAE.
“He’s at NCA. We’ll find out his (fitness) status (from NCA) and evaluate his fitness before the camp starts. Shreyas will hopefully be fit for the season. He’s already looking good,” Ankola told TOI.
“Depending on government permission, we’ll golf the camp in Mumbai, or outside the city if need be. These players have only been picked for the fitness camp. If someone does well in the local tournaments, then that player will be selected for Mumbai,” a source said.
Apart from Iyer, the list of players for the camp also includes other current India players Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, who seems to have recovered from his injury, Suryakumar Yadav, Shardul Thakur and Prithvi Shaw. “We selectors had a meeting today, in which the head coach (Amol Muzumdar) also participated. We’re making sure all the players who’ll be selected will be at the peak of their fitness when the season starts. The Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy will start on October 20. We’ve picked the probables so that when the government restrictions are lifted, we’ll have plans in place already,” Ankola told TOI on Monday. “It’s better to be prepared, then prepare when everything is announced,” he said.
Apart from Ankola, the other selectors are Ghulam Parkar, Sunil More, Anand Yalvigi and Prasad Desai.
