Robin Uthappa will be leading Kerala in the upcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy and will have Sanju Samso as his deputy, Kerala Cricket Association announced on Friday. Uthappa was already announced as the captain of the team before the start of the domestic season.
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Ahead of 2017/18 season, he had switched his base to Saurashtra and after playing for them for two years he decided to move to Kerala. Uthappa did not have a fruitful run there as he had to miss the second round matches of Vijay Hazare Trophy in 207/18 and later, he had to miss Ranji Trophy as he was recovering from ankle surgery.
Uthappa, ahead of 2017/18 season, had left Karnataka after his 15-year stint with the side. He was dropped from the squad in the previous season, which was considered to be one of the reasons behind the move.
At Kerala, Uthappa will have Samson as his deputy. The young wicketkeeper-batsman, who made it to the India squad in 2014 as a teenager, is again on brink of national selection and can be considered for a place in the T20 squad for Bangladesh series if he does well in the List A tournament.
It is clear that he has a race with Ishan Kishan for that spot and the batsman who will be doing better will get the nod. Samson recently shone in the fifth and the final unofficial one-day against South Africa A with an innings of 91 in a 20-over game, that was originally meant to be a 50-ver affair.
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All-rounder Jalaj Saxena, Basil Thampi, and Sandeep Warrier are other star players in the side. Both Jalaj and Sandeep were a part of India A recently while Thampi has been part of India’ T20 squad in 2017.
Sachin Baby, who led the team in the previous season, is also a part of the team.
Kerala will kick off their campaign against Chhattisgarh in Bangalore on September 25. They will next face Saurashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Jharkhand, Goa, Hyderabad and hosts Karnataka.