Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, June 15: J&K’s left-arm spinning all-rounder Abid Mushtaq has been named in North Zone team for the prestigious Duleep Trophy. The premier tournament will be held in Bengaluru from June 28 to July 16, with six zonal teams taking part.
Abid’s performance earned him the place as he is the only J&K player in the 15-member squad.
A scalp hunter he certainly is, rapacious for runs he surely is, ravenous for fame he definitely is, hungry for success he obviously is, but mean, he simply is not. He is Abid Mushtaq, a genuine gentleman and J&K’s ace cricketer–an all-rounder to perfection.
This extraordinary talented cricketer, who unfortunately failed to make it to the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season, had 32 wickets in his kitty in the Ranji Trophy this season while representing Jammu and Kashmir in this prestigious tournament, with 8/18 against formidable Vidarbha as his best, which is the second best in the country. With 29.00 as his bowling strike rate, he stands 4th in the entire country and with 14.38 as his bowling average; Abid is among the top 10 in India.
He was brilliant with the ball in this season’s Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and Vijay Hazare One-Dayers in which J&K qualified for the knockout stage.
The Team: Prabhsimran Singh (WK), Prashant Chopra, Dhruv Shorey, Ankit Kalsi, Mandeep Singh (C), Ankit Kumar, Pulkit Narang, Nishant Sindhu, Manan Vohra, Jayant Yadav, Baltej Singh, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Sidharth Kaul and Abid Mushtaq.