When Railways and Uttar Pradesh step out to the Karnail Singh Stadium wicket for their last league match of the Ranji Trophy season here on Friday, only one team would be fighting for survival.
Former champion UP, packed with heavyweights but languishing at the bottom with just nine points from seven games, would be battling to avoid the ignominy of relegation.
“I am confident of winning the match, our target is six points. But we will have to play well on all four days for that,” admitted Praveen Kumar, captaining the side instead of Piyush Chawla, who is unfit.
However, it is the batting that would be a concern for the visitor. UP has managed to reach 300 just once and crossed 250 once. On a track that is likely to assist batsmen once the wicket settles down early in the morning, UP batsmen would have be patient to get a big score.
Praveen is satisfied with his performance. “My target was to bowl at least 200 overs to prove my fitness. I have done 150 so far and will do another 40-50 in this match,” said the former India seamer, the leading wicket-taker for UP this season.
Railways too is likely to have a new captain in spinner Karn Sharma though Mahesh Rawat’s availability would be decided only in the morning. Rawat, struggling to be match fit, skipped practice on Thursday. He has been the second-highest scorer for the team this season, playing the rescue act on more than one occasion. If he misses the game, Nitin Bhille would don the wicketkeeper’s gloves.
“We will be looking for full points to stay in the reckoning for the knockout stages. UP’s batting has been ordinary and its morale is down so we will try to build on that on what will be the best batting track here this season,” said Railways coach Harvinder Singh.
The permutations for a possible quarterfinal berth for Railways are complex. While table-topper Karnataka (32 points) cannot be touched, the other two spots are up for grabs. An outright win would put Railways in the reckoning, provided other results go its way, and Railways would be keeping fingers crossed.
For UP, the equation is simpler: a first-innings lead would ensure it stays at the cost of J&K on the basis of better match quotient; anything less and it’s relegation for the heavyweights.
The teams (from):
Uttar Pradesh: Piyush Chawla, Tanmay Srivastava, Mukul Dagar, Himanshu Asnora, Umang Sharma, Parvinder Singh, Eklavya Dwivedi, Ali Murtaza, Praveen Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Amit Mishra, Imtiaz Ahmed, R.P. Singh, Prashant Gupta, Akash Verma, Arish Alam, Amir Khan and Ankit Rajpoot.
Railways: Mahesh Rawat, Nitin Bhille, Amit Paunikar, Rohan Bhosale, Arnab Nandi, Arindam Ghosh, Karn Sharma, Ashish Yadav, Prashant Awasthi, Anureet Singh, Anustup Majumdar, Ranjit Mali, Krishnakant Upadhyay, Abhishek Kaushik, Amit Mishra.
