Lad injured, replaced by Manish Rao

Mumbai: Champions Mumbai's hopes of taking full points from their last Ranji Trophy Group A game against Gujarat starting at Valsad tomorrow, suffered a slight dent with the injury sustained by young batsman Siddesh Lad.

"Siddesh Lad has been injured and is being replaced by Manish Rao," informed Mumbai Cricket Association's joint secretary Nitin Dalal today.

Lad was their best batsman in the previous lost game against Karnataka. Rao, who was in the squad for the previous game, had been dropped for the do-or-die match against Gujarat to include left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdullah.

The 40-time Ranji champions' qualifying hopes for the knock out rounds are hanging by a slender thread following their historic first-ever loss to Karnataka (by 160 runs) at Bangalore.

Mumbai are standing third in the table behind leaders Karnataka (32) and second placed Gujarat (26) with 23 points, the same as fourth-placed Punjab, and need to win the game against Gujarat to ensure their entry into the quarter finals.

Mumbai are already without the services of several key players because they are either busy with India duty (Zaheer Khan, Ajinkya Rahane) or are injured (Abhishek Nayar, Dhawal Kulkarni).