“It is important that we play to our strengths and back ourselves,” said Tamil Nadu skipper Abhinav Mukund ahead of the match against Uttar Pradesh on a spin-friendly wicket in a crucial Ranji Trophy Group ‘A’ match here from January 13 to 16.
Both the teams are in the lower half of the group table and the captains are aware that an outright win may well push them up the leaderboard.
If confidence is the key, then Tamil Nadu can draw a lot from its fighting draw against Bengal in the last match, with Dinesh Karthik notching up a century, his second of the season. He has been in good touch and so has Abhinav.
Others like B. Aparajith and B. Indrajith too have had some useful scores but haven’t been able build on them.
“The onus is on Dinesh, Sathish and me to convert the starts into hundreds,” Abhinav said.
Inconsistent displayTamil Nadu has had an off-on run thus far, the lone win coming against Jammu & Kashmir.
It has had its moments but failed to cash in.
Aushik Srinivas, who is under the weather, has been replaced by M. Prabhu. “Prabhu has played a lot of first division cricket. All three spinners — Malolan (Rangarajan), Rahil (Shah) and Prabhu — are quite experienced and a lot of bowling has to be done by them,” Abhinav said.
The bowlers will look to snare UP opener Tanmay Srivastava early. The left-hander has been in good touch and though his fighting hundred could not save his team from defeat against Baroda, he holds the key to UP’s batting.
Abhinav said: “Tanmay has been in good form. It’s important for us to stay on top of them throughout.”
Could backfireTamil Nadu has pinned its hopes on its spinners and the helpful pitch. The spin trap, however, could well turn against the host, considering that the visitors have skipper Piyush Chawla and Ali Murtuza, neither alien to these conditions, having played here.
Chawla feels the game will be dominated by the spinners.
“Our spinners haven’t bowled a lot because of the green tracks we got to play on thus far. On this sort of wicket, accuracy is important. Also, we need to come together as a batting unit,” he said.
The stage is set. It remains to be seen who reaps the harvest.
The teams (from):
Tamil Nadu: Abhinav Mukund (captain), U. Sushil, B. Aparajith, Dinesh Karthik (wk), B. Indrajith, S. Suresh Kumar, R. Sathish, Vijay Shankar, Malolan Rangarajan, Rahil S. Shah, M. Prabhu, K. Bharath Shankar, Ashwin Crist, M. Mohammed and M. Shahrukh Khan.
Uttar Pradesh: Tanmay Srivastava, Akash Verma, Akshdeep Nath, Umang Sharma, Piyush Chawla (captain), Eklavya Dwivedi (wk), Amit Mishra, Himanshu Asnora, R.P. Singh, Arish Alam, Ali Murtuza, Mukul Dagar, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Israr Khan and Parvinder Singh.
