High-flying Karnataka start favourites against Odisha

Cricket Ranji Trophy

 The winning streak is back and with it the familiar confidence in the Karnataka ranks. The eight-time winners, after weathering a forlorn 2015, have fought back with the resilience of a champion side.

With four victories on trot, one of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinals places is virtually theirs to say. Now on last stretch of the league stage, Karnataka would be keen to end it on a high, beginning with Odisha at the Palam Ground on Monday.

Karnataka’s stupendous run in the five matches this season is a far cry from 2015 where the team was ailed with issues of form and injuries to key players. This year the team has coped with the absence of their star players. KL Rahul, who was present during the team’s whopping 393-run victory over Rajasthan in the previous match, has joined the national side along with Karun Nair.  Manish Pandey and Abhimanyu Mithun, too, have missed matches either due to national duty or injuries.

Yet Karnataka have conjured four victories and one draw in their five outings to camp themselves on top of Group B. Led by skipper R Vinay Kumar, the side has clicked in unison, played with a sense of purpose, and successfully kept complacency at bay. Vinay who has been an architect in the Karnataka’s victories in the last two matches against Vidarbha and Rajasthan, is burning with the desire to don national team jersey besides reclaiming the title. In the three matches this season, Vinay has picked 16 wickets and forged an impactful new-ball opening partnership with left-arm-seamer S Arvind who has 22 scalps from five matches.

Keeping up with the seamer friendly conditions in the venue, Karnataka have made three changes to the squad with Prasidh Krishna and David Mathias stepping in for Rahul and Pandey respectively and Abrar Kazi replacing J Suchith. The 20-year-old fast bowler Prasidh is likely to be drafted in the playing XI to boost the seam attack with off-spinner K Gowtham and leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal holding the spin department.

In the batting, the opening slot of Mayank Agarwal is likely to be restored in the absence of Rahul. Agarwal will open with R Samarth who is amidst a fine run. The middle order has been taken care of by Robin Uthappa and all-rounder Stuart Binny, who is in fine fettle by amassing 364 runs in the five matches.

Going by the statistics, Odisha have numbers similar to those of Karnataka but in reverse order. In their five matches, they have four draws and one win to show.

They have quality batsmen in Biplab Samantray, Subhranshu Senapati and captain Govind Poddar who is returning after knocking a first innings double century in a drawn contest against Assam. But Odisha were guilty of defensive approach in the first innings. It has led them to concede first innings lead in three matches. They have experienced seam attack in the Basant Mohanty, Suryakant Pradhan and Deepak Behara with a left-arm spinner in Dhiraj Singh. Against Karnataka, as Poddar confessed, they would have be on their toes.

The venue itself would offer a fascinating, albeit noisy, spectacle of descending aircrafts to the airport nearby. The contest, though, would continue unhindered, and with the intensity it promises.

Fixtures

Group A: Baroda vs Bengal (Rohtak); Gujarat vs Mumbai (Hubballi); Madhya Pradesh vs Railways (New Delhi); Punjab vs Tamil Nadu (Nagpur);

Group B: Delhi vs Rajasthan (Wayanad); Karnataka vs Odisha (New Delhi); Saurashtra vs Vidarbha (New Delhi); Assam vs Maharashtra (Chennai).

Group C: Andhra vs Kerala (Guwahati); Chhattisgarh vs Hyderabad (Valsad); Himachal Pradesh vs Services (Surat); Goa vs Haryana (Ghaziabad); Jammu & Kashmir vs Tripura (Mumbai).