Jitesh-led Vidarbha to take on Odisha

Vidarbhaare placed in group 'D' along with Odisha, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Assam, Railways and Chhattisgarh.

Last year Vidarbha crashed out in the quarterfinals. They lost to Delhi by 39 runs. This time after fabulous Ranji performance in the first stage of the game, Vidarbha would like to continue the momentum in the white-ball short format of the game.

Akshay Wadkar, who led Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy, winning the first four matches outright and gaining first innings lead against Gujarat, has also been included in the squad. Wadkar is in great form and scored an unbeaten century against Gujarat. Secondlyhis experience will help Vidarbha team.

Senior pacer Umesh Yadav in the 17-member squad has added strength to the team. Apart from his, Vidarbha have white ball specialist in the form of Yash Thakur, Shubham Dubey and Apporva Wankhade.

Vidarbha’s assistant coach Atul Ranade will be in charge as the selectors have given Senior Team coach Usman Ghani.

The tournamnt will run till December 15 with the semi-finals and finals to be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The T20 tournament will have 38 teams split into five groups, three groups of eight and two of seven, fighting it out for the prestigious title.

Team

Vidarbha: Jitesh Sharma (Captain & wk), Atharva Taide (Vice-captain), Akshay Wadkar (wk)

Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Apoorva Wankhade, Aman Mokhade, Danish Malewar, Akshay Karnewar, Darshan Nalkande, Dipesh Parwani, Yash Thakur, Parth Rekhade, Harsh Dubey,

Praful Hinge, Mandar Mahale and Shubham Dubey.

Odisha: Govinda Poddar (c), Abhishek Yadav, Gourav Choudhury, Prabin Luha, Kartik Biswal, Rakesh Pattnaik, Sandeep Pattnaik, Debabrata Pradhan, Rajesh Mohanty, Harshit Rathod, Swastik Samal, Aasirwad Swain and Tarani Sa.