Hanuma Vihari has relinquished his Andhra captaincy in the Ranji Trophy ahead of his team’s match against Mumbai. Andhra Pradesh took three points in their first match of the season under Vihari’s captaincy based on the first innings lead after a draw against Bengal. He also scored a gritty half-century to make a valuable contribution to Andhra.
However, the 30-year-old decided to step down as captain to focus on his batting. Senior batter Ricky Bhui has been chosen as his successor for the mega Ranji trophy clash between Andhra and Mumbai at Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy ground starting Friday.
Ahead of the big clash, Bhui talked about Vihari’s big decision.
“He (Vihari) has stepped down due to personal reasons. He wanted to focus on his batting more,” new skipper Ricky Bhui said.
Bhui also backed Vihari to get his rhythm back and score big hundreds in the Ranji Trophy.
“The last season we played on difficult pitches — our home wickets were seaming — but this time we have good spinners so we made sure we play on different surfaces and batters also get good amount of runs. He (Vihari) got a good start in the last game also but couldn’t continue. We know he is capable of getting big hundreds, it is a matter of one knock (before) he gets his confidence back of getting big hundreds. I am sure he will come back to that rhythm,” Bhui added.
WATCH: Rohit Sharma Furious at Shubman Gill After Getting Run-out For Duck on T20I Comeback
Vihari has played 16 Test matches for India in which he scored 839 runs at an average of 33.56. However, he didn’t get consistent chances for India in the side. He was also dropped from the central contract list of players released by the BCCI last year. Vihari has been out of the Indian team since 2022 and was dropped from the side after the postponed fifth Test match against England at Edgbaston.
Ahead of the season, there were reports of Vihari shifting his domestic cricket base from Andhra to Madhya Pradesh but the move didn’t happen.
Comments
0 comment