Vidarbha to take on Railways in opener

This year, a total of 38 teams will participate in the 88th edition of the prestigious tournament which will be held in the traditional format after two years of hiatus. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition was not held in 2020–2021 and in the 2021-22 season, it was played in a scaled-back format. The Ranji Trophy 2022-23 will consist of 135 matches, beginning on 13 December 2022 and will continue till 20 February 2023.

Vidarbha has been placed in Elite D group along with Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Railways and Gujarat. Faiz Fazal-led side would like to make the winning start on their home turf where they would be playing four matches out of seven. Last season Vidarbha crashed out at league stage in the tournament in which all the matches were played at Sultanpur. However, this time Vidarbha would like to make use of home advantage to make progress in the premier BCCI tournament.

On paper Vidarbha look very balanced side. The selectors have also given importance to the experience in the team selection. The formidable Vidarbha batting line up has experienced batters like captain Fazal himself, R Sanjay, Ganesh Satish, Akshay Wadkar, young Atharva Taide, Mohit Kale and explosive Apoorv Wankhede. The pacers include Yash Thakur, Aditya Thakre, Ranjeesh Gurbani and Lalit Yadav. The spinners Akshay Wakhare, Aditya Sarwate and young Hash Dubey would like to make their mark in red-ball cricket.

Vidarbha: Faiz Fazal (c), Akshay Wadkar, R Sanjay, Atharv Taide, Ganesh Satish, Mohit Kale, Apoorv Wankhede, Siddhesh Wath, Aditya Sarwate, Harsh Dubey, Akshay Wakhare, Yash Thakur, Aditya Thakre, Rajneesh Gurbani and Lalit Yadav.