Ranji Trophy: Bengal, Vidarbha to lock horns sans stars

Without international speedsters Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav, the Bengal-Vidarbha Ranji Trophy Group D match starting at the CAB Academy ground from Thursday may lose some glamour but not its significance.

In order to give its seamers, including Ashok Dinda, some advantage and negate the impact of Vidarbha spinners comprising Karn Sharma, Akshay Wakhare and Akshay Karnewar, third-placed Bengal would have liked to have a green top pitch for the contest.

However, the presence of a neutral curator may give a twist to the host’s planning.

Wriddhiman Saha interview

The biggest boost for Bengal will be the presence of Shami in the dressing room. His knowledge will be beneficial for the younger seamers.

The good form of Abhimanyu Easwaran, Abhishek Raman, Manoj Tiwary and Sudip Chatterjee will be an assuring factor for Bengal, which gathered three points on the basis of first innings lead against Himachal Pradesh.

Slotted second, Vidarbha, which had an outright win against Services in its last outing, is also eyeing to fare well against a close competitor such as Bengal and strengthen its chances of making it to the quarterfinals.

Even though Faiz Fazal, Ganesh Satish and Sanjay Ramaswamy have been the main run getters for the side, Vidarbha has got depth in batting.

Despite the absence of Umesh, it has got variety in bowling and can throw a good challenge at the home batsmen.

The teams (from):

Bengal: Manoj Tiwary (captain), Sudip Chatterjee (vice-captain), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Abhimanyu easwaran, Shreevats Goswami, Anustup Majumdar, Abhishek Raman, Koushik Ghosh, Aamir Gani, Pradipta Pramanik, Ashok Dinda, Sayan Ghosh, Ishan Porel, Kanishk Seth, B. Amit, Writtick Chatterjee.

Vidarbha: Faiz Fazal (captain), Sanjay Ramaswami, Ganesh Satish, Wasim Zafar, Apoorva Wankhede, Akshay Karnewar, Siddhesh Wath (wk), Shalabha Shrivastava, Akshay Wakhare, Lalit Yadav, Karn Sharma,Aditya Sarwate, Akshay Wadkar (wk).