Manish Pandey to lead Karnataka across three formats, confirms KSCA

The KSCA secretary has confirmed the news that Pandey will lead the state unit prior to Karnataka’s Ranji Trophy match against Chhattisgarh. Earlier this year Pandey had taken over the captaincy of the state team during the Vijay Hazare Trophy from R Vinay Kumar but the association had not committed anything regarding the arrangement of the leadership duties considering the unavailability of international players like Pandey, KL Rahul and Karun Nair.

"Keeping the future of Karnataka cricket in mind, the selectors felt that we should start grooming another captain and Manish was the best choice. It also works that he is available for the rest of the season. We consulted Vinay as well and given his commitment to the sport and the team, he said he was willing to play under anyone. We have a good leadership group and it augers well for the team," Rao told TOI.

Vinay Kumar, who was also a part of the process of the selection of a new captain, has also mentioned that the new leader in the form of Pandey will get his full backing for the rest of the matches this season. 

"I was part of this (selection of captain) process. I knew I had to gradually hand over my captaincy to someone suitable. Manish is a good friend, I will keep giving my inputs. He is a wonderful guy and definitely will lead the team well. I was definitely blessed with a superb team. I just worked with the coaches to define each member's role and all of them responded. Our team never depended on a single individual and that was key to our success," the former skipper said. 

Squad: Manish Pandey, (Capt), R Vinay Kumar, Shreyas Gopal (VC), D Nischal, KV Siddharth, Liyan Khan, Devdutt, Paddikal, BR Sharath, J Suchith, Abhimanyu, Mithun, Ronit More, Pavan Deshpande, Sharath Srinivas, K Gowtham, Prasidh Krishna.