Karnataka captain Mayank Agarwal, who was recently hospitalized after drinking a suspicious liquid on board a flight, has recovered and will return to lead his team against Tamil Nadu in the next Ranji Trophy Group C match from Friday in Chennai. The 32-year-old batsman had consumed the liquid on board his team's flight to Surat after the match against Tripura last month. He had to be admitted to a hospital to treat the burning sensation in his mouth and throat. Agarwal then filed an FIR for foul play. He therefore missed Karnataka's last fight against Railways.
However, the doctors here cleared him of any major health problem, paving the way for his comeback to the team.
Promising batsman Nikin Jose had captained Karnataka against Railways in Agarwal's absence and the former champions registered a nail-biting one-wicket win in Surat with veteran Manish Pandey making an unbeaten fifty.
Currently, Tamil Nadu leads Group C with 21 points, as does Karnataka. But TN tops the chart due to their better net run rate of 2.06.
Agarwal's return will boost their batting as the Karnataka opener has so far scored 310 runs from four matches at an average of 44 with two hundreds and fifty.
Karnataka have also received a further boost in batting as the in-form Devdutt Padikkal will also be available for this match.
From three matches, the left-hander has amassed 369 runs at an average of 92.25 with two hundreds.
Padikkal missed the last match as the 23-year-old was part of the India A squad that faced England Lions in Ahmedabad.
Opener Dega Nischal and Abhishek Shetty moved aside for Agarwal and Padikkal.
Karnataka team vs TN: Mayank Agarwal (captain), Nikin Jose (vice-captain), Devdutt Padikkal, Samarth R, Manish Pandey, Sharath Srinivas (wk), Aneesh KV, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Vasuki Koushik, Shashikumar K, Sujay Sateri (wk), Vidwath Kaverappa, Venkatesh M, Kishan S Bedare, Rohit Kumar AC, Hardik Raj. Coach: PV Shashikanth.
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