Ranji Trophy: Manish Pandey, Abhimanyu Mithun return as Karnataka face Saurashtra

Bengaluru: Table toppers Karnataka, having been given a rude wake-up call by an unfancied Odisha in their previous game, where they managed to pull off a face-saving draw, will be keen to bounce back against in their Group B game against Saurashtra at Patiala from Tuesday.

Karnataka have been boosted by the return of seniors Manish Pandey and Abhimanyu Mithun, after the duo missed out the previous couple of games owing to injuries. In this scenario, Kaunain Abbas and Ronit More could make way for the returning twosome though Mithun has missed more games than most this season.

Having surrendered the first innings lead for the first time this season after four consecutive victories, Karnataka were brought back to earth by Odisha at Delhi and with the complacency having gone through the roof, R. Vinay Kumar’s men will be thirsting to unleash their might against their opponents, who are entrenched at the bottom with four defeats from six games.

Karnataka will look to seal their knockouts berth and a victory here will assure them of a top-two berth even as Jharkhand and Maharashtra step up pressure in a closely-contested group.

Fixtures:
Group A
At Dharamsala: Baroda v Madhya Pradesh, At Nagpur: Bengal v Mumbai, At Mysuru: Gujarat v Punjab, At Rajkot: Railways v Uttar Pradesh
Group B

At Vizianagaram: Assam v Jharkhand, At Chennai: Delhi v Vidarbha, At Patiala: Karnataka v Saurashtra, At Wayanad: Odisha v Maharashtra