Ranji Trophy semi-final: KL Rahul included in Karnataka squad to face Bengal

Bengaluru: Opening batsman KL Rahul has returned to Karnataka state squad for the Ranji Trophy semi-final against Bengal.

On Monday (February 24), Karnataka defeated Jammu and Kashmir by 167 runs to enter the last-four stage of Ranji Trophy.

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The semi-final will be played in Kolkata from February 29 and Karnataka have been strengthened by the inclusion of Rahul, who has returned from New Zealand tour.

The right-hander was part of ODI and T20I India squads. He is not in the Test team.

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Karnataka will be captained by Karun Nair. In the previous Ranji Trophy season, Karnataka had lost to Saurashtra in the semi-final at Bengaluru's M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara had hit an unbeaten 131 in that game to guide Saurashtra to five-wicket victory.

Karnataka squad

Karun Nair (captain), R Samarth, Devdutt Padikkal, Manish Pandey, KL Rahul, Sharath Srinivas (wicketkeeper), Shreyas Gopal, K Gowtham, Abhimanyu Mithun, KV Siddharth, Prasidh Krishna, J Suchith, Prateek Jain, Ronit More, Sharath BR (wicketkeeper).

Coach: Yere Goud. Bowling Coach: S Arvind. Fielding Coach: Shabarish P Mohan