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TN meets Delhi without injured Balaji

Sports Reporter

TN only team to register outright win in the opening fixtures
Delhi will miss leg-spinner Chetanya Nanda

Chennai: Tamil Nadu and Delhi will meet in an intriguing Ranji Trophy Elite Group ‘A' match that begins at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday.

The inevitable back-story to the encounter is Delhi's first-innings win in last season's quarterfinal, which knocked an unbeaten Tamil Nadu out of the competition.

Tamil Nadu was the only team to register an outright win in the opening Elite fixtures last week, but achieved that result against an Assam line-up short on exposure to the top division.

If the Chepauk wicket remains as slow as it was during the course of that game, first innings lead is likely to separate Tamil Nadu and Delhi yet again, considering key injuries that have robbed both bowling attacks. The host starts the match without Lakshmipathy Balaji, who has been a new-ball talisman over the last two seasons. Balaji is out with a thigh strain.

Delhi will miss leg-spinner Chetanya Nanda, who picked up a knee injury in the opener against Bengal, his comeback game after missing all of last season injured.

Seventeen-year-old left-armer Vikas Mishra is likely to return in his place.

Thus weakened, the two attacks might struggle to dismiss two of the best batting sides in Indian domestic cricket, especially if rain has a say.

Virat Kohli, fresh from tonking 173 against Bengal, Shikhar Dhawan, the experienced Mithun Manhas and former Tamil Nadu man Rajat Bhatia, who averages 113.75 in four matches against his old team, form the core of a formidable Delhi lineup.

Tamil Nadu's case

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu will hope that its collapse from 308 for four to 346 all out against Assam was a one-off, and not indicative of any chronic lower-order fragility, considering its policy of playing five bowlers.

The top six, on the other hand, has a reassuring look to it.

Abhinav Mukund, Arun Karthik, S. Badrinath and Dinesh Karthik have all scored heavily over the last two seasons, while S. Anirudha and R. Sathish made promising starts to the season against Assam with first-innings fifties.

The teams:

Tamil Nadu: D. Karthik (captain), A. Mukund, S. Anirudha, K.B. Arun Karthik, S. Badrinath, R. Sathish, C. Ganapathy, R. Ashwin, R. Sutheesh, R. Aushik Srinivas, K. Shree Vasudeva Das, Sunil Sam, M. Prabhu, J. Kaushik; Batting coach: P.C. Prakash; Bowling coach: D.J. Gokulakrishnan; Fielding coach: T.S. Mohan.

Delhi: Mithun Manhas (capt.), Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Rajat Bhatia, Punit Bisht, Pradeep Sangwan, Parwinder Awana, Sumit Narwal, Pawan Suyal, Vikas Mishra, Chetan Sharma, Aditya Jain, Mayank Tehlan, Manoj Chauhan and Yogesh Nagar; Coach: Manoj Prabhakar .

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