Mumbai cricket team: Hiken Shah,Kshemal Waingankar brought in; still no place for Sarfaraz Khan

Desperate times call for desperate measures. A day after being humbled by minnows Jammu & Kashmir at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai have made some drastic changes to their squad for their next two away games against Railways (December 14 to 17) and Uttar Pradesh (December 21 to 24).

The selectors decided to recall southpaw Hiken Shah in place of veteran batsman Wasim Jaffer, who has been ruled out due to injury. Jaffer was injured while attempting a catch in the match against J&K. Shah had scored 443 runs at 36.91 in 14 innings last season. The think tank felt that his experience would come handy in the absence of Jaffer.

Meanwhile, medium-pacer Kshemal Waingankar has been brought in to replace Dhawal Kulkarni, who has been called up as cover to injured Bhuvneshwar Kumar in Australia. Left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla was dropped to bring in wicketkeeper-batsman Sushant Marathe.

While the Mumbai Cricket Association has obtained the much-delayed NOC for off-spinner Akshay Girap.

However, it is surprising that Mumbai, going through a transitional phase, have not included talented youngster Sarfaraz Khan, who has been consistent in age group cricket for Mumbai.

Squad: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Abhishek Nayar, Aditya Tare, Hiken Shah, Bravish Shetty, Praful Waghela, Shreyas Iyer, Sushant Marathe, Kevin Almeida, Vishal Dabholkar, Akshay Girap, Shardul Thakur, Javed Khan, Badre Alam, Kshemal Waingankar