Armaan and his Old Jaffer

“Armaan has been a great player and his scores in school and BCCI junior tournaments proved that. The whole idea of having him in the side is to boost his confidence. There are a bunch of the youngsters in Mumbai,who have been performing outstandingly and we felt it’s time to promote them,” Naik said.

Armaan has been the backbone of Rizvi Springfield School in schools cricket and he scored more than 1000 runs in last season for Mumbai’s U 16s. Jaffer slammed 473 runs in the Harris Shield final and back in 2010 he had scored 498 in the Giles Shield final for his school side. During the Vijay Merchant final in New Delhi,Armaan slammed 290.

For Armaan’s father Kalim,it will be a dream come true if he sees Armaan and Wasim batting together.

“It’s a big thing to be in the probables list and I’m thankful to the selectors who showed such faith in Armaan. It was always my dream to see Armaan and Wasim bat together one day. If it happens then the world will see perfect batsmanship and at the same time Armaan will learn a lot watching Wasim,” Kalim explained.

Armaan’s father Kalim Jaffer

However,Armaan is not jumping the gun at the moment,he is not thinking too much.

“I’m happy to get my name in the probables list but I have achieved nothing at the moment. I still have a mountain to climb and need to continue to score in whatever matches I play ahead,” Armaan says.

The senior selection committee has also included Sarfaraz Khan and Atul Singh who’ve both been picked for India under 19 squad.

Selection committee chIEF Sudhir Naik

Interestingly,the selection committee has not picked Shoaib Shaikh and Praful Waghela,part of the squad last year,and MI’s Sushant Marathe in the Ranji probables list.

However,there was no discussion on who will lead Mumbai Ranji season ahead. Mumbai had clinched Ranji Trophy crown under Ajit Agarkar’s captaincy last season but the former India pacer had to miss few matches in between.

“We haven’t discussed about captaincy but we will do it in due course,” informed a MCA selector.

The selected players will began their off-season camp from July 1 at MCA-Bandra Kurla Complex Academy.

The probables list

Sachin Tendulkar,Ajit Agarkar,Wasim Jaffer,Armaan Jaffer,Zaheer Khan,Ajinkya Rahane,Rohit Sharma,Abhishek Nayar,Suryakumar Yadav,Iqbal Abdulla,Aditya Tare,Hiken Shah,Kshemal Waingankar,Kaustubh Pawar,Siddhesh Lad,Vishal Dabholkar,Ramesh Powar,Dhawal Kulkarni,Javed Khan,Shardul Thakur,Saurabh Netrawalkar,Akhil Herwadkar,Sarfaraz Khan,Balwinder Singh Sandhu (Jr.),Sagar Kerkar,Sufiyan Shaikh,Sarvesh Damle,Atul Singh,Pratik Dabholkar and Avishkar Salvi.

Under-25 probables List

Swapnil Salvi,Mairaj Khan,Swapnil Pradhan,Sidharth Prasad,Gandhar Bhatawadekar,Pratik Gawali,Nikhil Mandle,Hemant Buchade,Nikhil Patil (Jr.),Jay Nayak,Shashank Singh,Prasad Patil,Sachin Yadav,John Abraham,Ninad Kadam,Roystan Dias,Rahul Lad,Prathamesh Dhake,Ronak Sharma,Harshal Soni,Jay Davane,Atif Atterwala,Sujit Nayak,Amay Dandekar,Sagar Gorivale,Aakash Parkar,Ankush Jaiswal,Ajinkya Patil (W.K.),Mayuresh Sanap,Yogesh Dhumal (W.K.),Deepak Shetty.