It was a back injury that had kept Iyer out of the entire IPL 2023 and beyond until he returned for the Asia Cup in September, just before the ODI World Cup at home. He batted just once in the Asia Cup before smashing 530 runs in the World Cup while averaging 66.25 and striking at 113.24, with two centuries and three half-centuries. He soon returned to the Test side too, for the South Africa tour, before being retained for the first two Tests against England at home.
Fitness permitting, Iyer will return to lead his IPL side Kolkata Knight Riders after missing the last season with a back injury, and he has just over a month to recover for that.
Mumbai will probably miss Dube more in the quarter-final because he had struck two attacking centuries and two half-centuries in his six Ranji innings this season. Dube picked up the injury in the last league game against Assam and had gone for scans on the second day, when Mumbai trounced the visitors by an innings and 80 runs. It was Mumbai’s third innings win of this Ranji season.
Mumbai’s 16-man squad announced on Tuesday included allrounder Musheer Khan, brother of India’s recent debutant Sarfaraz Khan, who missed most of the Ranji season because of the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa where India finished runners-up to Australia. Musheer struck two centuries there to end with a tally of 360 runs from seven innings, the second-highest on the charts behind his team-mate Uday Saharan.
Mumbai will be led by Ajinkya Rahane with Prithvi Shaw, Shardul Thakur and Dhawal Kulkarni as the other international players in the side.
Mumbai squad: Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Prithvi Shaw, Bhupen Lalwani, Amogh Bhatkal, Musheer Khan, Suryansh Shedge, Prasad Pawar (wk), Hardik Tamore (wk), Shardul Thakur, Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Aditya Dhumal, Tushar Deshpande, Mohit Awasthi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Roystan Dias