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Tamil Nadu needs to raise its game

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Having managed just one point from the first two rounds of the Ranji Trophy Super League, Tamil Nadu will need to step its game up when it plays Karnataka at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium from Friday.

The home team’s chances were dealt a blow with off-spinner R. Ashwin fracturing his left wrist. Ashwin, who has scored two half-centuries and taken eight wickets this season, is expected to be out of action for at least four weeks.

Ashwin’s injury will force a tactical re-think. “We’ll have to see, there have been a few things we haven’t accounted for,” said the Tamil Nadu coach W.V. Raman, when asked about the composition of the side. “Also, Dinesh (Karthik), being in the Test team, isn’t available.”

Batsman-friendly

The playing surface, said Raman, will have little in it for the bowlers. “As is the wont with Ranji Trophy, it will boil down to which team bats better,” he said. “Having had a look at the pitch, it looks like it will be a batathon.”

Yere Goud will lead Karnataka in Anil Kumble’s absence. Coach Vijay Bharadwaj said the side has planned for the void the departures of Kumble and Rahul Dravid have left. Robin Uthappa — who powered Karnataka’s campaign last season, scoring big, brisk runs — slots in at the top of the order after his time with the national one-day side. R. Vinay Kumar, who scalped six against Himachal Pradesh in the last match, will likely share the new ball with N.C. Aiyappa, while the spin department will be manned by two left-armers: the veteran Sunil Joshi and the 18-year-old K.P. Appanna.

Bharadwaj indicated that Karnataka, currently third in Group ‘A’ with seven points, would strive to force an outright win: fancying a spot in the knockout phase, the side is looking to benchmark itself against the stronger teams in the group.

A young Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, must learn to sustain its intensity session after session to justify the reputation of being a side of strength. There have been patches of promise; but, matches at this level are won by stringing sessions together, not frittering away in an hour the advantages gained the preceding hour.

The teams (from):

Tamil Nadu: S. Badrinath (capt.), M. Vijay, S. Anirudha, R. Prasanna, K. Shri Vasudeva Das, R. Srinivasan, K.H. Gopinath (w.k.), R. Ramkumar, P. Amarnath, R. Naresh, V. Yomahesh, Abhinav Mukund, C. Ganapathy, C. Suresh, and Suresh Kumar.

Karnataka: Yere Goud (capt.), Robin Uthappa, K.B. Pawan, B. Chipli, C. Raghu, Thilak Naidu (w.k.), B. Akhil, Sunil Joshi, R. Vinay Kumar, N.C. Aiyappa, K.P. Appanna, Sudhindra Shinde, Devraj Patil, S. Dhananjaya, and Gaurav Dhiman.

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