The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Tough task for Haryana

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Tough task for Haryana

Principal Correspondent

LAHLI (ROHTAK): Haryana will face the difficult task of stopping a mighty Karnataka when the two sides meet in the Ranji Trophy Super League Group ‘B' match at the Chaudhary Bansi Lal cricket stadium here from Wednesday.

With a sound batting line-up and a formidable bowling attack, Karnataka has proved in its first outing what it is capable of. Beating home team Punjab convincingly was no mean feat and the finalist of the last season will be up in confidence against a lower-ranked side like Haryana.

Led by its captain and bowling spearhead Vinay Kumar, who captured eight wickets against Punjab, the Karnataka pace battery has another international Abhimanyu Mithun and rookie left-arm medium pacer S. Aravind, who claimed seven wickets at Mohali, in its rank. The trio will look forward to exploit the seamer-friendly conditions here.

Robin Uthappa's big hundred might have made a substantial contribution in Karnataka's victory last week, but no one can undermine the useful contributions by five other batsmen.

However, the last thing the touring side would do is not to take Haryana lightly.

The home team had given Mumbai a run for its money in the quarterfinal last year at the same venue.

After achieving a good start against Himachal Pradesh this season, Haryana suffered an innings defeat against Baroda. It has to get its act together and improve its batting a few notches to put up a decent fight against Karnataka.

So far, it has been heavily dependent on its Tamil Nadu-import Hemang Badani and youngster Manav Sharma, who has played a couple of good knocks. It's high time other batsmen also struck form.

“So far, we have failed in just one of the four innings. We have to improve our batting a bit. We have to field well too as this was the area where we lacked in the last match,” said Haryana coach Ashwini Kumar.

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