Ananthapadmanabhan has termed leggie Mohamed Enaan as one for the longer term.
| Photo Credit: File photograph: R. RAGU
With a weight of expectations and with out its greatest match-winner, Kerala braces up for a troublesome 2025-26 Ranji season.
Jalaj Saxena, who drew the template for Kerala’s large wins at residence particularly on the St. Xavier’s College floor, has joined Maharashtra. Aditya Sarwate, who performed an enormous half in Kerala’s maiden entry to the ultimate final season, has moved to Chhattisgarh.
Kerala’s success has been constructed on bespoke pitches at residence however the absence of two skilled campaigners for this season has made the duty of emulating final 12 months’s efficiency fairly arduous. The expertise cabinet is naked and it will likely be onerous to fill the void left by Saxena.
Though Kerala has a number of helpful spinners in white-ball cricket, it’s alarming to word that no high quality spinner has come via the ranks in red-ball format within the final decade.
The Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) additionally has failed to develop a correct system to groom spin bowling skills and has as an alternative focused on poaching skills from different States.
Former Kerala captain and ICC panel umpire Okay.N. Ananthapadmanabhan mentioned it was time for the KCA to put in place a system to develop high quality spinners. The ex-leg-spinner mentioned KCA ought to determine potential spinners and provides them a long term within the senior group.
Okay.N. Ananthapadmanabhan.
| Photo Credit:
File photograph
“KCA has finished large work for creating the sport within the State. We have the perfect infrastructure and coaching amenities. But the KCA appears to have ignored the necessity to develop spinners within the State. We have good batters. Sachin Baby, Mohammed Azharuddeen and Salman Nizar had been persevered with and so they got here of age equally we should always again younger spinners. KCA ought to determine long run prospects and provides them an opportunity to play a minimum of 20 matches at (the) senior degree.
“We want a special talent set to excel in red-ball cricket and lots of of our younger spinners don’t play many multi-day video games and for them containment is the important thing. They ought to find out how to choose up wickets within the longer format of the sport and that may include expertise. I feel leg-spinner Mohamed Enaan has the potential and KCA ought to groom him correctly,’’ he mentioned.
On Kerala’s possibilities this season, Ananthapadmanabhan mentioned it will be robust for the group to repeat final 12 months’s runner-up feat if it doesn’t do effectively in residence matches.
Published – September 20, 2025 07:24 pm IST