Mumbai's run machine Sarfaraz Khan, who has also been pushing for a place in the Indian team, suffered a huge setback as he was ruled out of Irani Trophy clash. Sarfaraz Khan was unavailable for selection owing to a hairline fracture on his left little finger. The All-India Senior Selection Committee named Baba Indrajith as his replacement for the tournament," said BCCI in a media release on Monday.
Sarfaraz suffered the injury on his right finger while doing the 'keeping duties for DY Patil 'B' in a match during the DY Patil T20 Cup. He was injured while collecting a throw from teammate Yash Dhull. He will be out of action for around 10 days. He is currently recuperating at the Delhi Capitals' pre-season camp at Kolkata. The consistent Sarfaraz has scored 3505 runs in 37 first-class games at an average of 79.65, with 13 hundreds. The Mumbai batsman scored 556 runs in 6 games at an average of 92.66, with three centuries, in the just-concluded edition of the Ranji Trophy.
The Irani Cup venue was shifted to Gwalior from Indore after the third India-Australia Test was shifted to the Holkar Stadium from Dharamsala.
The Irani Cup match will mark Gwalior's return to first-class competition after more than six years.
Bengal's Abhimanyu Easwaran, who was part of the Indian squad which played a two-Test series in Bangladesh in December, will also be aiming to catch the attention of the selectors with a good showing with the bat. He had previously led India 'A' on their tour to Bangladesh when he scored two consecutive hundreds. The other top-order batsmen on the Rest of India team include Yash Dhull, Sudip Kumar Gharami, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Baba Indrajith and Sudip Kumar Gharami.
