Image Credit- Getty
For the duration of the Ranji Trophy season, Hanuma
Vihari will not be leading the Andhra team. After Vihari guided them to a home
tie with Bengal in the season’s opening round, Ricky Bhui will now take charge
of the team. Vihari is still in the starting lineup for Andhra’s Group B match
against Mumbai at the Sharad Pawar Academy in BKC, Mumbai.
In the match against Bengal, Bhui hit 175—his 15th
first-class century—while Vihari made 51 in Andhra’s lone innings.
In Birmingham in 2022, Vihari made his final
appearance for India against England. He led Andhra to the knockout stages of
the previous season, where they were defeated by Madhya Pradesh in the
quarterfinal. Due to a fracture to his left forearm from an Avesh Khan bouncer,
Vihari batted left-handed for the most of the first and second innings in that
match. In 14 innings during the previous season, he scored 490 runs at an
average of 35 and two half-centuries.
Later, he also represented the South Zone in the
Duleep Trophy and the Rest of India in the Irani Cup against Saurashtra, the
Ranji winners. He scored 0 and 43 in the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy before
leading the team in scoring in both of the final innings, which they lost
against West Zone, with 63 and 42. He scored merely 33 and 22 in the Irani Cup.
During all those first-class matches, he served as captain.
Prior to the current season, Vihari was considering
resuming his Test career by moving to MP to play for famed domestic coach
Chandrakant Pandit. He only managed to score 109 runs in the Vijay Hazare
Trophy and 229 runs with a strike rate of 149.67 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali
Trophy, but Andhra was able to hold onto him till the very end. Additionally,
he failed to attract any buyers at last month’s IPL 2024 auction.
The 27-year-old Bhui has previously captained Andhra
22 times in all competitions and five times in the Ranji Trophy. In March 2022,
he played his final match as captain against Uttarakhand.