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Depleted Delhi determined to give a tough fight

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: A potentially intense combat in serene settings presents the Delhi-Karnataka Ranji Trophy super league match in the right perspective when the two teams meet at the Roshanara Club ground here from Tuesday.

The four-day contest brings these two confident teams together at a venue which once played host to Marylebone Cricket Club in 1926, not to forget the Ranji Trophy final in 1957 when Bombay beat Services.

Fresh and raring

Karnataka is fresh and raring from its victory over Uttar Pradesh in the previous match. Delhi is happy with three points garnered against Baroda. But then this match is different. Delhi is facing a severe crunch in the absence of eight regulars and a captain who will take a call only on the morning of the match.

Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ashish Nehra, Virat Kohli and Ishant Sharma are on national duty. Pradeep Sangwan is representing the Board President’s XI in the three-day match against Sri Lanka. Mithun Manhas and Chetanya Nanda are injured. Skipper Aakash Chopra has a painful knee. And the replacements are woefully short of quality needed at this level.

Also a setback

“Five players in the Indian team is bonus but a setback too. It is not an ideal situation for us even though it provides an opportunity to others. We have a decent opposition and it would be a task taking 20 wickets. In any case, there are not many teams which can take 20 wickets in domestic cricket match,” observed Chopra, who was not at all comfortable at the ‘nets’ this morning. It would be a brave decision in the team’s interest if he decides to play. In case he is ruled out, Shikhar Dhawan would be in-charge.

Karnataka doesn’t have such worries. True, it has lost Robin Uthappa to the BP XI’s side but the team is banking on the overall strength. “We have (CM) Gautam to step in. He played three games last season. We have a young and talented side. It is nice to see some young boys coming through,” said Karnataka skipper Rahul Dravid.

“It looks a good track. There could be enough for the bowlers and hopefully there would be a result either way. Beating U.P. was very satisfying. It has given the team lot of confidence,” Dravid noted.

The teams (from):

Delhi: Aakash Chopra (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rajat Bhatia, Mayank Tehlan, Gaurav Chhabra, Puneet Bisht, Yogesh Nagar, Ankur Julka, Sumit Narwal, Aditya Jain, Darshan Kajania, Pawan Suyal, Parven Chakara, Abhishek Sharma, Parwinder Awana and Joginder Singh.

Karnataka: Rahul Dravid (captain), K.B. Pawan, C.M. Gautam, Amit Verma, Manish Pandey, Thilak Naidu, B. Akhil, Sunil Joshi, R. Vinay Kumar, A. Mithun, K. P. Apanna, Udit Patel, Stuart Binny, Ganesh Satish, S. Arvind and Ryan Ninan.

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