A rain-marred campaign will prompt Karnataka to push for an outright win from the get-go when it takes on Uttar Pradesh in its Ranji Trophy Group ‘C’ encounter at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium here from Wednesday.
With nine points from four games, Karnataka sits fourth in the standings after it had to settle for a point each from its first two weather-curtailed matches. Ceding the first-innings lead to Bengal in its previous contest has left Karnataka with the lone bright spot of an eight-wicket win against lowly Bihar.
There are no such silver linings for a winless Uttar Pradesh, however, which is coming off a drubbing against Kerala and languishes in sixth place. It crumbled against Jalaj Saxena’s trial by spin, folding for 162 and 116 in an innings-defeat, and Karnataka’s spin band, led by Shreyas Gopal, will hope for an encore.
But Karnataka skipper Mayank Agarwal will need to get his form and house in order first. The opener and his senior partner Manish Pandey have failed to step up, averaging 27.2 and 31.66, respectively this season. But the visitors will breathe a sigh of relief as their top-scorer Nikin Jose, who sustained an injury while fielding against Bengal and couldn’t bat in both innings, is fit again. Meanwhile, Devdutt Padikkal, who returned to Bengaluru on Tuesday after his stint with India A in Australia, hasn’t been added to the squad.
Uttar Pradesh’s batting has hinged on openers Madhav Kaushiv and Aryan Juyal, and its middle-order, comprising Nitish Rana and Priyam Garg, hasn’t delivered consistently in the absence of Rinku Singh (India duty).
International duties have also depleted the pace attacks of both sides, with Yash Dayal, Prasidh Krishna and Vijaykumar Vyshak missing out. However, Karnataka has ridden out the crisis better, with V. Koushik emerging as an able spearhead
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