After letting defending champion Rajasthan off the hook, Karnataka is expected to come hard at Railways in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group match beginning here on Thursday.
Skipper Vinay Kumar declared that his team was looking for the maximum against the host that lies softened up following a 10-wicket drubbing at the hands of Mumbai on Sunday.
Testing conditions at Udaipur and some ordinary fielding in the second innings, coupled with Rajasthan's late resistance, kept Karnataka's tally to just three points. No wonder then, the visiting team will be looking for its first win at the Karnail Singh Stadium.
The pace trio of Vinay Kumar, A. Mithun and S. Arvind along with left-arm spinner K.P. Appanna are capable of getting 20 Railways wickets on a surface that promises to test the batsmen with its two-paced nature.
Among the Karnataka batsmen, opener Robin Uthappa and G. Satish will be very keen to make amends for their failure against Rajasthan.
Others, with runs in the opening game, will obviously be a confident lot.
On the contrary, Railways is looking to salvage its pride at home. Last week, if its bowlers were made to look ordinary by Mumbai, the batsmen failed twice against some inspired bowling.
On Wednesday, skipper Sanjay Bangar was clear that batting first would be the best option. The team will miss the indisposed duo of medium pacer Ranjit Mali and batsman Prashant Awasthi. He did not rule out the prospects of including former Assam off-spinner Arlen Konwar in the playing eleven.
Coach Abhay Sharma hinted at the inclusion of left-arm spinner Nilesh Chauhan. Veteran Yere Goud, not preferred against Mumbai, may get lucky this time.
The squads: Karnataka: R. Vinay Kumar (captain), R.V. Uthappa, K.B. Pawan, G. Satish, M. Pandey, Amit Verma, C.M. Gautam, S.T R. Binny, A. Mithun, K.P. Appanna, S. Arvind, S. Akshay, K. Gowtham, Syed Khaja Moinuddin and S. Raju.
Railways: Sanjay Bangar (captain), Shivakant Shukla, Shreyas Khanolkar, Fair Fazal, Nitin Bille, Mahesh Rawat, Dhiran Salvi, J.P. Yadav, M. Kartik, Anureet Singh, Nilesh Chauhan, Yere Goud and Arlem Konwar.
