SHOWING faith in the ability of double Ranji Trophy winning captain Faiz Fazal, the Vidarbha Cricket Association has retained him to lead Vidarbha in their first Ranji Trophy Group D League match against Railways to be played at Nagpur from December 13 to 16.

White ball skipper Akshay Wadkar will be vice-captain to the southpaw opener. All-rounder Akshay Karnewar could not find a place in the first 15 with the selector preferring youngster Harsh Dubey.

The 15-member squad was picked by VCA’s senior selection committee comprising Chairman Suhas Phadkar, Naim Razzaque and Chandrashekhar Atram, which met on Thursday. They also named five stand-by players for the match. Talented batter Akshay Agrawal, who has scored runs by tons in domestic cricket, is one among them.

The Team: Faiz Fazal (C), Akshay Wadkar (VC), R Sanjay, Atharva Taide, Ganesh Satish, Mohit Kale, Apoorv Wankhade, Siddhesh Wath (WK), Aditya Sarvate, Harsh Dubey, Akshay Wakhare, Yash Thakur, Aditya Thakre, Rajneesh Gurbani, Lalit Yadav.

Stand-bys: Aman Mokhade, Akshay Agrawal, Nachiket Bhute, Subham Kapse, Akshay Karnewar. Coach: Sanjeev Sharma. Manager: Shirish Joshi. Physio: Nitin Khurana. Trainer: Yuvraj Singh Dasondhi. Video Analyst: Aniruddha Deshpande.