Chennai: Positivity is the need of the hour. “It’s a do or die situation,” was what both W.V. Raman (Tamil Nadu coach) and Ashok Malhotra (Bengal coach) uttered on the eve of their final Ranji Trophy match at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday.
The hosts have everything in place for them — the pitch, conditions, and even the former coach of Bengal, Raman, in their ranks to aid their cause. It’s a matter of the players joining forces to deliver the knock-out punch against a rejuvenated Bengal side.
Bengal, a young team under the inspired leadership of Laxmi Ratan Shukla, have hit their straps just in the nick of time. An outright win against Uttar Pradesh in their last outing has given them a chance to make it to the final eight.
With the track expected to assist spinners, Malhotra was keen on playing an extra-spinner in left-armer Iresh Saxena alongside offie Saurasish Lahiri. The all-round abilities of Arnab Nandi, an off-spinner and a right-hand batsman, is expected to lend support to the other two spinners.
Pacer Ashok Dinda, who routed the UP batsmen with 7/82 in the last game, looked chirpy during the practice session and would have definitely taken a cue from Rajasthan pacer Pankaj Singh, who is a hit-the-deck sort of pacer, on how to go about on this wicket.
Shukla has been in great form with scores of 117 and 95* in the last two outings. While Bengal expect their experienced batsman Shukla to nurture their young top-order — Gitimoy Basu, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Sudip Chatterjee — to a huge total, TN would hope the law of averages catches up with the 32-year-old all-rounder.
Raman as usual didn’t disclose the playing combination of his side for the crucial tie and kept his options open. One would assume that the tried and tested combo of offie R. Malolan, left-arm tweakers — R. Aushik Srinivas and Rahil S. Shah — is likely to continue. As far as the pace department is concerned and going by the trend this season, skipper L. Balaji is the only certainty.
All the pacers in the squad — J. Kaushik, M. Mohammed and A. Aswin Crist — have played in patches underlining the team’s horses for courses formula. Will the all-round capabilities of Vijay Shankar, which weren’t fully extracted by the home side against Rajasthan, be utilised in this game? If he is not going to be used as a bowler, then Vijay Shankar can make way for B. Indrajith, a middle-order batsman who scored a fluent 38 in TN’s victory against Baroda.
Irrespective of whoever gets the nod for the middle-oder spot the ‘fabled top-order’ has to set the ball rolling if TN are to harbour any hopes of making it to the knock-out phase. They failed to rise to the occasion to rack up a big score against Rajasthan. Left-handed middle-order batsman R. Prasanna had been the lone man fighting it out every time the team is under the cosh.
TN would do well not just to remember the sundries they had conceded against Rajasthan but they must also try to curb them. Expect nothing but sheer aggressive brand of cricket from either sides as a draw would spell doom for both outfits.
Squad: Tamil Nadu: L. Balaji (c), S. Badrinath, Abhinav Mukund, B. Aparajith, R. Prasanna, Dinesh Karthik (wk), K.B. Arun Karthik, B. Indrajith, Vijay Shankar, Malolan Rangarajan, R. Aushik Srinivas, A. Aswin Crist, J. Kaushik, Rahil S Shah
Bengal: Laxmi Ratan Shukla (c), Gitimoy Basu (wk), Saurasish Lahiri, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Jitendra Shaw, Koshik Ghosh, Writtick Chatterjee, Subhomoy Das, Ashok Dinda, Sudip Chatterjee, Iresh Saxena, Arnab Nandi.
Umpires: Anil Kumar Chaudhary and Ulhas Vitthalrao Gandhe
Match referee: Balbir Singh
Play commences at 9.30am on the first three days and at 9.15am on the last day.
