JOIN USFierce fight in store as familiar foes cross swords
The temperature in Mumbai stayed at a surprisingly pleasant 25 degrees on Saturday. The clement weather allowed both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu players to stretch their respective nets for a few more minutes.
On such extended sessions, quick bowlers would like to put their feet up and catch some breath, but the Karnataka camp presented a different picture. R Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun and S Arvind were relentless. They seemed to get fresher after each ball.
The sight explained their immense success this season. They have blown away oppositions in pacer-friendly conditions; they have bamboozled rivals with their craftiness on pitches with less assistance while grabbing a remarkable 116 wickets among them.
Their effort played a significant role in the defending champions breezing into the final without minimum fuss. In comparison, the six frontline Tamil Nadu bowlers have pocketed 113 scalps.
But that’s history. They are now facing the biggest occasion of the season, a Ranji Trophy final beginning on Sunday. They have a tough team to tame – Tamil Nadu. Here at the Wankhede stadium, they perforce need to deliver one more time. And that’s not an easy task. Of course, they had shredded TN into pieces in the opening game of the season at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.
But since then, under new skipper Abhinav Mukund, TN had undergone a massive image makeover – from weak-kneed greenhorns to steel-hearted challengers. Their batting had clicked as a unit. Apart from their leading run-getter Mukund, Baba Indrajith, Baba Aparajith, Dinesh Karthik, M Vijay and Vijay Shankar have chipped in with crucial runs.
They showed their strength and new-found confidence in the semifinal against Maharashtra, batting almost three days to pile up a 500-plus total. So, it’s imperative for Karnataka pacers to shackle the heavy-scoring TN batsmen. The pitch here is expected to offer equal assistance to both bowlers and batsmen, and Mukund endorsed the view.
“It’s a good wicket. There will be something in it for the seamers initially and you will get value for your runs. It always happens in Mumbai. If you bowl in good areas you will do well and as I said it is a very good cricketing wicket,” he said. For the pacemen from Karnataka the nature of the pitch is immaterial, as they have shown many times this season. However, the same cannot be said about their batsmen. Yes, they have some big names in their ranks.
Robin Uthappa has been consistent, scoring upwards of 900 runs, while other batsmen such as Manish Pandey, CM Gautam, R Samarth and KL Rahul, who made a triple hundred against Uttar Pradesh, too had their moments under the sun.
But they have not fired in unison so far, save for a couple of occasions. Even in semis they were in a precarious situation against Mumbai after getting bundled out for 202. But Vinay (6/20) saved them from an inglorious exit, rolling the 40-time champions for 44 in their first innings.
Karun Nair has been woefully out of touch throughout this season, giving the middle-order a brittle look. The TN bowling line-up may have an inadequate look about it, but taking them lightly will only hurt Karnataka. Then there is this much-talked about needle between the two Southern neighbours.
They had given us some memorable battles, in the past featuring players like EAS Prasanna, GR Viswanath, BS Chandrasekhar, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, S Venkataraghavan, VV Kumar, K Srikkanth, VB Chandrasekhar L Sivaramakrishnan and WV Raman.
But that remains just that – a golden piece of history. Now, it is the turn of this new generation to add fresh pages to the book.