Vidarbha in must win situation

Nagpur, Feb 23

The draw against Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy group 'G' encounter in the previous encounter, has put two-time champions Vidarbha in the must-win situation against Maharashtra in their second encounter beginning at Gurugram Cricket ground, in Sultanpur (Haryaana) on Thursday

After first-round Mahaashtra is leading the points tally with 7 points followed by Vidarbha (3), Uttar Pradesh (1) and Assam (0).

The second match has become important for Vidarbha as only one team will qualify for the kockouts from each group. Therefore Faiz-Fazal led team is eyeing an outfight victory to stay in the contention. On the other hand, the confidence of Maharashtra is high after an emphatic victory against Assam.

Actually barring the last two sessions on the last day against Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha had an upper hand and were heading towards outright victory. But the century-run partnership from UP middle-order batsmen Rinku Singh and Saurabh Kumar dashed Vidarbha's hopes. Since Umesh Yadav is on national duty, he will miss the remaining two Ranji Trophy encounters. In such scenario, Rajneesh Gurbani will take his place. Rest of the squad is likely to remain the same.

As far as Vidarbha's batting is concerned their all top-order batsmen delivered their best. Leading from the front Faiz Fazal scored fabulous 192 in the first innings and he was well supported by Sanjay Ramaswamy (92) who unfortunately missed the century by just eight runs. The openrs would like to carry the same confidence in the crucial match. Akshay Wadkar and Apoorv Wankhede too are among the runs. While wicketkeeper-stumper Wadkar slammed an unbeaten 102, Wankhede scored 66 and helped Vidarbha to pile up 548 runs.

Among the bowlers, left-arm spinner Aditya Sarvate claimed a five-wicket haul in the first innings. Pacers Aditya Thakare and Umesh Yadav were also chipped in with two each.

In second innings, experienced offie Akshay Wakhare excelled and claimed three wickets. Sarvate too bowled well and captured two.

All in all barring last session, everything went in favour of Vidarbha in the first match. In second match, Vidarbha would not like to repeat the old mistake.

Going by stats, Maharashtra have upperhand over Vidarbha. So far they have played eight matches between them in which Maharashtra recorded outright victory in eight and Vidarbha just one. In three matches Maharashtra won on the basis of first-innings lead. But cricket is such a funny game where history and stats holds hardly any significance.

Teams

The squad:

Faiz Fazal (C), Akshay Wadkar (VC & wk), Atharva Taide, Ganesh Satish, Apoorv Wankhede, Siddhesh Wath (wk), R Sanjay, Mohit Kale, Yash Rathod, Akshay Wakhare, Aditya Sarvate, Akshay Karnewar, Lalit Yadav, Aditya Thakre, Praful Hinge, Siddhesh Neral, Ganesh Bhosale, Rajneesh Gurbani,

Maharashtra: Ankeet Bawane (Captain), Rahul Tripathi, Yash Nahar, Pavan Shah, Naushad Shaikh, Azim Kazi, Vishant More (wicket-keeper), Satyajeet Bachhav, Avdhoot Dandekar (wicket-keeper), Taranjitsingh Dhillon, Mukesh Choudhary, Ashay Palkar, Pradeep Dadhe, Divyang Hinganekar, Yash Kshirsagar, Vishal Gite, Nikit Dhumal, Siddhesh Veer, Manoj Ingale, Vicky Ostwal, Kaushal Tambe.