Hyderabad v/s Punjab

In the points table of Group A of the eight teams Hyderabad lies in the fifth position almost out of contention for the quarterfinals for the Ranji Trophy. In their last outing against a powerful Mumbai outfit they were given a heavy thrashing, losing the vital contest by an innings and also helping them to get a bonus point. In the coming match against Punjab the Hyderabadi outfit should try to regain some momentum under their belt so that they can give themselves an outside chance to reach the quarterfinals of the Ranji championships. With their premium batsman V.V.S. Laxman and their lead spinner PP Ojha called up for national duty the Hyderabadi captain Arjun Yadav will have his job cut out.

The bowling had faltered under the relentless attacking batting from the Mumbai batsmen and the only bright spot in their woeful match was the batting prowess of Ravi Teja who went on to score a quick-fire 107 in the second essay.

Punjab meanwhile is lying in the seventh position and is facing a ignominy of relegation to the Plate Group. Punjab like their next opposition had to face a huge defeat at the hands Gujarat. They had to face the option of following on and to rub salt on their wounds Gujarat chased down the small target that they had so painstakingly set with ten wickets to spare. There were no real bright spots in Punjab’s heavy defeat other than Gangandeep Singh running in hard and tirelessly and picking up a five-fer and their batting was in shambles. So to look for an inspiration to push for a better performance will be a very difficult job for them. Pankaj Dharmani will be feeling the heat to try to turn around the fortunes of his sagging team. With Yuvraj Singh called up for national duty it is looking increasingly bleak for Punjab.

Hyderabad (from): Arjun Yadav (capt), T Suman, Ravi Teja, Rushi Raj, Anoop Pai, Abhinav Kumar (wk), Ahmed Qhadri, SM Shoaib, Lalit Mohan, Ashwin Yadav, Abdul Khader and MP Arjun

Punjab (from): Charanjeet Singh, P Dharmani (captain), Gangandeep Singh, K Goel, MS Gony, R Inder Singh, Jaskaran Singh, A Kakkar, S Kaul, U Kaul, V Khanna, RS Ricky, Sarabjit Singh and S Sohal.

Saurashtra v/s Delhi

The factors of form and luck that the Saurashtra team had benefited last season seem to have spilled into this season too. Most of their batsmen are in form especially the young prodigy C. Pujara who seems to relish the prospect of going out and batting. They seem to follow the same philosophy of Mumbai of burying down the opposition in an avalanche of runs and then chipping away at their batting resources. The sound thrashing that they gave to Rajasthan in their last match shows their meticulous game plan that they follow. They will be looking to emulate the performance that they had put up the last time of reaching the semi-finals and also trying to reach the finals this time. Jaydev Shah the skipper is in an enviable position in the sense that he does not have to scratch his head in the anticipation of where the next runs or wickets would come for his team.

The Delhi camp meanwhile will be relieved that they were able to open their winning account with their hard fought victory against Orissa. It was a very interesting match, a low scoring one which from the first ball bowled looked like heading towards a result. Chopra who is in charge as Delhi camp is bereft of their international Gambhir, Sehwag and Sharma will be hard pressed to try to pocket this match too. The current champions are holding onto the fourth position by the skin of their teeth and hopeful that none of the teams below them make any dramatic recovery to upstage them from their current position and lose their quarterfinal slot. In the absence of the internationals the batting responsibility falls upon Chopra his newly appointed deputy Shiker Dhawan to carry the batting to a respectable score.

Saurashtra (from): CR Pathak, BM Chauhan, SH Kotak, CA Pujara, RA Jadeja, JN Shah (captain), KR Makwana, SD Jogiyani(wicket keeper), RV Dhruve, SP Jobanputra, BN Jadeja

Delhi (from): Aakash Chopra (c), Shikhar Dhawan (vc), Mithun Manhas, Virat Kohli, Rajat Bhatia, Punit Bisht, Chetanya Nanda, Pradeep Sangwan, Ashish Nehra, Mayank Tehlan, Parvinder Sharma, Sumit Narwal, Narender Singh, Aditya Jain, Gaurav Chhabra and Rahul Yadav

Baroda v/s Tamil Nadu

Baroda has only a victory to show from their last four matches and has always being playing the catch up game. The presence of the Pathan brothers in the last match has helped Baroda more than it had hoped for. The elder Pathan, Yusuf returned back from national duty to blast the team past Maharashtra while the younger Pathan, Irfan with his swing and guiles took the sail out of the opposition. They are lying in the fifth position and this might be their last chance to sneak into the first four to claim a place in the knockout phase of the tournament.

Tamil Nadu is sitting at the top of the pack without any discomfort for they have confirmed their entry into the knockout phase with fifteen points currently which includes a bonus point also. They have started the season strongly and will be hoping to finish the qualification round with a victory so that they don’t lose momentum. With Murali Vijay Krishnan out on national duty Abhinav Mukund will be shouldering the extra batting responsibility and this might just inspire him to raise his bar a little higher. The best aspect of the Tamil Nadu squad is that they have efficient men in the ranks for the batting and bowling department.

Baroda (from): CC Williams (captain), SS Parab, AA Bilakhia, RK Solanki, YK Pathan, PR Shah(wk), IK Pathan, RV Pawar, KN Panchal, AK Argal and SY Veragi.

Tamil Nadu (from): P Amarnath, L Balaji, KB Arun Karthik, C Ganapathy, R. Srinivasan, C Suresh, S Suresh Menon, R Prasanna, A Mukund, KD Karthik (captain and wicket keeper), H Gopinath and VY Mahesh

Karnataka v/s Uttar Pradesh

Karnataka in their last game against Baroda whipped them mercilessly to canter home by 10 wickets. Though the form of their skipper Robin Uthappa has remained scratchy the team as a unit has clicked well and has stayed unbeaten which is a great achievement in itself. The old warhorse Sunil Joshi ‘Joe’ as he is called has been performing admirably well and they are expected to seal a place in the quarterfinals

Uttar Pradesh is sitting pretty at number two in the table and unless anything drastic happens they seems to be heading towards the knockout phase. Though their last match was a drawn affair they still managed to collect three valuable points. The team has been enhanced with the arrival of RP Singh who has been asked to find his rhythm by the selection committee. The bowling attack is a well-rounded one with Praveen Kumar and RP Singh manning the pace attack with Chawla lending his tweakers.

Karnataka (from): NC Aiyappa, S Aravind, B Chipli, DA Chougle, CM Gautam, VST Naidu, MK Pandey, KB Paswan, C Raghu, SN Raju, G Satish, RV Uthappa and R Vinay Kumar

Uttar Pradesh (from): Amir Khan, PP Chawla, PP Gupta, A Imtiyaz Ahmed, M Kaif, AG Kapoor, B Kumar, P Kumar, RP SINGH, Parvinder Singh, SK Raina, RU Shukla, SS Shukla, TM Srivastava, S Tyagi and Avinash Yadav