Pondicherry had a solitary win in 10 Ranji Trophy matches at the Elite level ahead of the ongoing season. Now, with two wins in three games in the current tournament, it will hope to give 2021-22 champion Madhya Pradesh a fight when the two teams meet in a Group D contest at the CAP Ground 2 here from Friday.
The home side is coming off convincing wins against Delhi and Uttarakhand, with a 98-run loss to Baroda sandwiched in between. That defeat came while chasing 218 and Pondicherry will hope to stave off another batting collapse.
In six innings in the tournament so far, Pondicherry has breached the 200-run mark only on two occasions, underlining its overreliance on the bowlers, who have restricted the opposition to below 200 five out of six times.
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Pacer Gaurav Yadav and left-arm spinner Sagar Udeshi, with 23 and 18 wickets in the season, respectively, have accounted for 41 out of Pondicherry’s 60 scalps.
Additionally, Gaurav, the leading wicket-taker of the tournament, will be raring to go against his former side Madhya Pradesh, which he served for more than 10 years before leaving it ahead of the season due to limited opportunities.
Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh’s sheen of a recently crowned champion side is fading. Though it beat an embattled Delhi team by 86 runs in a low-scoring contest, it conceded the first-innings lead to Odisha after failing to force an outright win against Uttarakhand, eventually settling for a draw.
With Rajat Patidar unavailable due to national duty, the onus will be on Venkatesh Iyer to step up. The all-rounder will hope to find able support from Shubham Sharma, who assumed the captaincy mantle with elan against Delhi, scoring 59 and 73.
Tweakers Saransh Jain and Kumar Kartikeya will pose a potent threat to Pondicherry’s shaky batting line-up that has struggled against spin in testing conditions.
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