JOIN USThe flip of the coin will play most on the minds of two captains of Mumbai and Bengal when they step onto the Feroze Shah Kotla for the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Monday.
The pitch at Kotla has grabbed more attention than cricket, with the team winning the toss invariably winning the match as well.
The first two games of the knockout matches resulted in low-scoring affairs with the players slamming the pitch for being sticky and assisting the team batting first.
In the last match, when Mumbai thrashed Delhi by 140 runs, the pitch was rolled during the two-day break to favour the batsmen. It again turned out be acutely one-sided affair. How the strip behaves on Monday will be of great interest.
Unlike Bengal, who played both their matches at Palam ground, the two-time champions Mumbai have been lucky to have played both their matches at Kotla and are more well-versed with the conditions and notoriety of the surface.
Their batsmen are in good touch; Wasim Jaffer and Ajinkya Rahane have batted with flourish while Abhishek Nayar played an explosive innings to disarm Delhi in the semifinals.
The two seamers Kshemal Waingankar and Anup Revandkar along with captain Ajit Agarkar looked sharp in the matches against Karnataka and Delhi. They would look to keep up the tempo against Bengal too. Mumbai's fielding, too, will give them an edge.
Bengal, led by former India skipper Saurav Ganguly, unlike Mumbai, have come off a tough match against Punjab, eking out a three-wicket win. Wridhiman Saha has been the backbone of the Bengal batting and played a pivotal innings of unbeaten 53 during the 205-run chase.
Ganguly, who has looked jaded with the bat, was impressive during his tight spell of five overs in which he conceded 18 runs and took a wicket.
For Bengal, who are yet to be win the tournament, it could might well be a chance to set the record straight. Mumbai obviously are no pushovers but the toss could well be the decider.
The squads: Bengal: Sourav Ganguly (capt), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Anustup Majumdar, Joyjit Basu, Subhamoy Das, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Arnab Nandi, Sanjib Sanyal, Iresh Saxena, Mohammad Shami Ahmed, Ashok Dinda, Sourav Sarkar, Sourasish Lahiri, Shreevats Goswami, Debabrata Das .
Mumbai: Ajit Agarkar (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Wasim Jaffer, Suryakumar Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Abhishek Nayar, Aditya Tare, Iqbal Abdullah, Shoaib Shaikh, Ankit Chavan, Sushant Marathe, Kshemal Waingankar, Anup Revandkar, Javed Khan.