{"id":393020,"date":"2026-01-27T11:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T11:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393020\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T11:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T11:13:09","slug":"ranji-trophy-devdutt-padikkal-replaces-mayank-agarwal-as-karnataka-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393020\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranji Trophy – Devdutt Padikkal replaces Mayank Agarwal as Karnataka captain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayank, however, retains his place as one of Karnataka’s six specialist batters in a squad that also included KL Rahul<\/a>. The India opener has played just two Ranji Trophy games since the start of 2018, with his last appearance coming against Haryana in January 2025.The captaincy change comes within a month of a new KSCA administration taking charge under president Venkatesh Prasad. In December, a new selection committee headed by former Karnataka allrounder Amit Verma<\/a> was put in charge of the senior men’s team.<\/p>\n

ESPNcricinfo understands the decision to opt for a younger captain was taken with one eye on the future. The selection committee also felt Mayank would be better served by focusing purely on his batting at the moment.<\/p>\n

He has had a tough time in the ongoing Ranji Trophy, having managed just 298 runs in nine innings at an average of 33.11 this season, with a century and two fifties. Padikkal, meanwhile, has been in rich form, his pair against Madhya Pradesh notwithstanding. He had a sensational Vijay Hazare Trophy, finishing as the second-highest run scorer with 725 runs from nine innings at a staggering average of 90.62.<\/p>\n

Karnataka’s batting has also been boosted by the return of Ravichandran Smaran, who missed their last game with injury. But they will be without Karun Nair, who suffered a split webbing against Madhya Pradesh. Nair didn’t bat in Karnataka’s second innings in that game, with Nikin Jose substituting om the field for him. Abhinav Manohar, meanwhile, has been dropped.<\/p>\n

The match against Punjab will also see Prasidh Krishna<\/a> lead Karnataka’s attack. The fast bowler is also set to make his first appearance this season after playing two games last season.<\/p>\n

The defeat to Madhya Pradesh means Karnataka’s game against Punjab in New Chandigarh is a must-win. They are currently third in Group B with 21 points, with Maharashtra (24 points) and Madhya Pradesh (22 points) ahead of them. Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh play each other in their last game of the league stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayank, however, retains his place as one of Karnataka’s six specialist batters in a squad that also included…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[132648,1721,36623,49,50,132647,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-393020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-bulletin","tag-cricket","tag-daily","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-package","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}