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TN meets U.P. on a green top

Special Correspondent

GHAZIABAD: A green top is likely to spice up the contest between two well-matched sides as Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu lock horns in their Ranji Trophy super league Group ‘B’ match at the Jawaharlal Nehru Cricket Stadium here on Sunday.

Having earned six points each from two games, both sides will try to collect as much points as possible from this tough game and strengthen their bid for a quarterfinal berth.

The sight of a prominent grass cover on the track must be pleasing to the eyes of the fast bowlers in both the camps. On paper, the two teams have depth in their seam-attack. But the host must be eyeing a positive result as its pacemen have contributed heavily to the side’s success this season.

Keeping fingers crossed

The only concern for the home team is the fitness of its star performer Praveen Kumar, who fractured an ankle in the last game against Baroda. Though there was no trace of Praveen at the nets on Saturday, Uttar Pradesh coach Gyanendra Pandey kept his fingers crossed. “Till now, his chance of playing tomorrow (Sunday) is 50-50. But if he does not play, it will be a big setback for us,” he said.

Uttar Pradesh skipper and one of its leading run-getters, Mohammad Kaif, was another notable absentee at the nets, but according to Pandey the captain would play in the match.

The visitor, on the other hand, was a bit cautious but exuded confidence. “It is (the green track) not a problem. We have some good seamers. (Lakshmipathy) Balaji and (C.) Ganapathy are very good bowlers and Yomahesh is one of the best talents around. Since our bowlers have bowled on flat tracks, the spinners have got more success. It’s only a matter of time the seamers delivered,” said Tamil Nadu captain Dinesh Karthik.

The batting has been one of the plus points for Tamil Nadu which has remained unaffected by the absence of one its key performers M. Vijay, who is doing the national duty in the one-day series against England. The two teams are tight-lipped about their strategies and will announce the playing XI only before the match.

The teams (from): Uttar Pradesh: Mohd. Kaif (capt.), Prashant Gupta, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Ashish Yadav, Sudeep Tyagi, Bhuvanesh Kumar Singh, Tahir Abbas, Amir Khan (wk), Piyush Chawla, Praveen Gupta, Praveen Kumar, Tanmay Srivastava, Anshul Kapoor, Parvinder Singh, Ravikant Shukla and Shivakant Shukla.

Tamil Nadu: Dinesh Karthik (capt. & wk), P. Amarnath, R. Ashwin, S. Badrinath, Arun Karthik, A. Mukund, V. Sivaramakrishnan, C. Suresh, R. Srinivasan, R. Prasanna, Suresh Kumar, K.H. Gopinath, L. Balaji, V. Yomahesh, C. Ganapathy and C.G. Chandrashekhar.

Umpires: Suhas Phadkar and Kamlesh Sharma.Match Referee: Balbir Singh.

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