A southern derby in Mumbai

March 07, 2015 03:09 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 05:15 pm IST - Mumbai

Tamil Nadu players during a practice session on the eve of the Ranji Trophy final in Mumbai on Saturday. Photo: Vivek Bendre

Tamil Nadu players during a practice session on the eve of the Ranji Trophy final in Mumbai on Saturday. Photo: Vivek Bendre

Two southern States endowed with a rich tapestry of cricket are all set to cross swords in the five-day Ranji Trophy final from Sunday. Inasmuch as the legion of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka supporters would have wished for the final to take place at Chennai or Bangalore, the neutral venue concept has made the final a non-event at a venue which has no stake at all.

It’s a peculiar situation wherein supporters of two teams would have to follow the action on television. Expecting a big turn out to see the country’s best two teams at the Wankhede would be far fetched at a time when even a home match does not generate as much interest among the ticket buying public.

However, the sheer thought of coveting the glittering silverware and winning the big cheque should be sufficient incentive for the players to give their all and compete in a match that for many years was seen as a Southern derby and produced some scintillating performances from players who then went on to don the national colours.

It’s been exactly three months since Karnataka and Tamil Nadu contested the opening league match on even terms for the first two days before the defending champion outplayed the visitor by a whopping 285 runs on the last day at the M. Chinaswamy Stadium.

The December chill in Bangalore may not have pinched Tamil Nadu as much as the big defeat, but it quickly drew a blueprint for success, hit the ground running and is in the title match three seasons after a heart-breaking home final loss to Rajasthan in January 2012.

Skipper Abhinav Mukund put down the harrowing experience against Rajasthan as a blur.

The win in the second match against Jammu & Kashmir at Dindigul helped Tamil Nadu salvage some big points, but the drawn game against Madhya Pradesh and the subsequent fear of not likely to advance to the knockouts forced the home association to create favourable conditions for its spinners.

Abhinav was disappointed that his team was not given its due. “Lot of people have not give credit to the fact that we have played on turning tracks; that’s something a lot of people have said takes some skill to beat two quality teams and get seven points from those games.

“It says a lot about the quality of our team and the turnaround point was that I think we played really well against Uttar Pradesh. A couple of our youngsters came in and turned it around. We went to Baroda where a couple of our fast bowlers did really well and we got the belief that we can do really well even on good tracks. We played the last three games on seaming tracks.’’

Karnataka, meanwhile, sustained its unbeaten streak until finishing second best to Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium. It derived strength from its openers Robin Uthappa and K. L. Rahul (who joined the team after the Test series in Australia) and equally solid support the middle order and lower order where leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal has turned out to be revelation with 652 runs.

And the three-pronged seam attack in Vinay Kumar, Sreenath Aravind and Abhimanyu Mithun has so far scalped 116 victims; add Gopal’s 24 and Karanataka has a complete bowling department.

Relying to a question on what’s the different between last year’s and this year’s teams, Vinay Kumar said, “I think it is the self belief. Most of them have played for five-six years of domestic cricket.

“They know exactly what kind of effort they have to put, the fitness to be maintained and the mind-set to have whenever they get the opportunity. Everyone wants to achieve big, that’s the plus point we have.’’

Karanataka will take a call on C.M. Gautam fitness on Sunday morning. It’s a fifty-fifty situation and Vinay Kumar hinted he will not take a chance if doubts over his fitness persist.

The teams (from):

Tamil Nadu: Abhinav Mukund (captain), M. Vijay, Baba Aparajith, Dinesh Karthik, Ramaswamy Prasanna, Vijay Shankar, Baba Indrajith, Aswin Crist, Laxmipathy Balaji, Prasanth Parameswaran, Malolan Rangarajan, Aushik Srinivas, Rahil Shah, Umashankar Sushil, M. Shahrukh Khan, Laxminarayanan Vignesh

Karnataka: R. Viinay Kumar (captain), Robin Uthappa, K.L. Rahul, Ravikumar Samarth, Manish Pandey, Karun Nair, Shreyas Gopal, Abhimanyu Mithun, Sreenath Aravind, Chidhambaram Gautam, Udit Patel, Shishir Bhavane, H.S. Sharath, Jagadeesha Suchith, K.C. Avinash, Abhishek Reddy.

Umpires: Anirudh Chaudhry and C. Shamshuddin.

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