Playing on home turf and after recording an outright victory against Haryana at the same venue few days back, Vidarbha are confident under the leadership of Akshay Wadkar. Vidarbha are the only team apart from Mumbai to have recorded five wins in Group A and playing in their backyard will help their confidence against Karnataka, who finished second in Group C behind Tamil Nadu. However, the home side will feel the absence of seasoned campaigner Faiz Fazal who called time on his career after the last group stage game, in which they crushed Haryana by 115 runs. The ex-captain led Vidarbha to the title victory twice. The Elite Group A topper, boasts of a strong batting line-up, with the likes of Karun Nair, Dhruv Shorey, Atharva Taide and Akshay Wadkar standing tall. Skipper Akshay Wadkar (431 runs), Dhruv Shorey (427) and former Karnataka batter Karun Nair (391) are in tremendous form and Aditya Sarwate and Aditya Thakare have handled the responsibility well in the bowling department with 30 wickets apiece.
For Karnataka, the unavailability of Devdutt Padikkal (556 runs in 4 matches at 92.66) will be felt but the likes of Manish Pandey (464) and Sharath Srinivas (429) can shoulder the batting responsibility. Pacer Vysakh Vijaykumar's all-round brilliance will also be a key factor for Karnataka .Karun Nair will take on his former colleagues for the first time. Left out of the Karnataka squad, he made the move to Vidarbha at the start of this season. Vidarbha, of course, cannot be taken lightly. Karnataka will remember the defeat it suffered at the hands of Faiz Fazal’s Vidarbha in the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy semifinal in Kolkata.
Teams
Vidarbha: Akshay Wadkar (Captain & WK), Atharva Taide, Dhruv Shorey, Karun Nair,
Yash Rathod, Mohit Kale, Harsh Dubey, Lalit Yadav, Aditya Sarvate (Vice-Captain), Yash Thakur, Aditya Thakare, Darshan Nalkande, Siddhesh Wath (WK), Akshay Wakhare, Aman Mokhade, Umesh Yadav and Danish Malewar.
Karnataka: Mayank Agrawal (C), Nikin Jose SJ, Samarth R, Manish Pandey, Sharath Srinivas,, Aneesh KV Vyshak V, Koushik V, Kishan Bedare, Hardik Raj, Vidwath Kaverappa, Ventakesh M, Sujay Sateri, Shashikumar K, Dheeraj Gowda and Rohit Kumar AC.