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A cracker of a contest in the offing

A. Joseph Antony

Tamil Nadu takes on U.P. on what appears to be a featherbed

— Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

SPEARHEAD: U.P. captain Mohd. Kaif watches Praveen Kumar at the nets on the eve of the Ranji Trophy semifinal against Tamil Nadu.

NAGPUR: Few would have foreseen the rise of the new order, say about a decade ago. The men from the metros have made way for those from the cricketing wilderness. None would epitomise this better than Mahendra Singh Dhoni of Jharkhand, a region that would have drawn little more than a sneer not too long ago.

The game’s Mumbai-centric moorings have drifted inwards into the hinterland, entrenching itself at the grass-root level. The semifinals of this edition of the Ranji Trophy exemplify the emergence of less fancied sides such as Saurashtra and Uttar Pradesh, the former making the semifinals only for the second time.

Of the two, the flow of talent from the latter to the highest levels of international competition has been consistent. Following the entry of Mohd. Kaif, Suresh Raina, R.P. Singh, Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar have all donned India colours.

Gifted

Waiting in the wings are the immensely gifted and elegant left-hander Tanmay Srivastava and the strapping speedster Sudeep Tyagi. All these aforementioned players, save for R.P. Singh, sidelined with a shoulder injury, will bolster UP that’s turned out in near full strength to take on Tamil Nadu at the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium, Nagpur.

“It will be a cracker of a contest,” predicted Subramaniam Badrinath. “The way we bounced back in the last game (against Bengal) shows our determination to win,” he said. “All our players are contributing, I’m in form and among the runs,” the swashbuckler added.

Both sides bear talent that can raise the bar almost at will. For instance, Lakshmipathy Balaji, with each passing match, seems to be getting better, reviving memories of the ravager of Rawalpindi. When it comes to the surge of youth, the scales seem tilted northwards though, the UP squad’s average age hovering round the early twenties.

“We’ll make amends for our defeat to TN at Ghaziabad in the league stage,” said UP coach Gyanendra Pandey. In that face-off, the side had gone without the triumvirate of Mohd. Kaif, Praveen Kumar and Suresh Raina.

Pandey confident

The pitch appears to be a featherbed but Pandey was confident its hardness would assist strike bowler Praveen Kumar and leg-spinner Piyush Chawla. The common desire to make the final showdown should drive the combatants to showcase some scintillating cricket, for sure.

The teams (from):

Tamil Nadu: Dinesh Karthik (captain), L. Balaji, S. Badrinath, M. Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, Arun Karthik, S. Vidyut, Suresh Kumar, R. Ashwin, C. Suresh, C. Ganapathi, Yomahesh, P. Amarnath, R. Prasanna, H. Gopinath, R. Srinivasan. Coach: W.V. Raman.

Uttar Pradesh: Mohd. Kaif (captain), Suresh Raina, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Sudeep Tyagi, Tanmay Srivastava, Ashish Yadav, Prashant Gupta, Tahir Abbas, Amir Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Praveen Gupta, Parvinder Singh, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Ravikant Shukla, Shivakant Shukla. Coach: Gyanendra Pandey.

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