In a mouth-watering Ranji cricket fixture where Mumbai will be up against a formidable Tamil Nadu side, the return of key players including skipper Aditya Tare will boost the home side’s confidence against the visitors today at the MCA Sharad Pawar Academy Ground in Bandra Kurla Complex.
The homecoming of Shreyas Iyer, who was named in the T20 squad for New Zealand, Dhawal Kulkarni and young gun Prithvi Shaw will definitely take some pressure off the other experienced players like Tare himself. The Mumbai trio missed the first game against Madhya Pradesh because of their call-ups for the Board President’s XI and India A teams that faced the Kiwis in the warm-up matches. The junior selectors pulled out Shaw, who was supposed to play in the Under-19 Asia Cup, following his excellent performances in the Duleep Trophy and the matches against the Kiwis and kept him in the senior leagues.
The Tamil Nadu side will see the return of opening batsman Murali Vijay who missed the last match against Tripura due to a neck spasm. His team will be out looking for a win after picking no points in the first game against Andhra Pradesh and missing out on an outright victory against Tripura.
Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has not shown his true potential in the tournament yet with just eight wickets in two matches but he has shown day in and day out, how dangerous he can be. Mumbai captain Tare, knows the danger that Ashwin poses. “Ashwin is a world-class bowler and we know that. We have been training against off-spinners for a couple of days. We are confident and it will be nice going up against such a talented player,” said Tare, who missed the first game, as his wife was due to give birth to their child.
“The return of players like Shreyas and Prithvi strengthens our batting line-up, which did really well in the absence of senior players away from home. But we know that these lads have the skill to win matches and their return is great for us. The Mumbai team has shown great character every year and that makes us more positive,” further added Tare.
In their last four meetings, the Mumbai outfit has beaten their South Indian counterparts thrice with one loss. The wins include the semi-final earlier this year in January and two in the group stages on previous editions. It was the same semi-final where the 17-year old Prithvi Shaw scored his debut century.
TN squad: Abhinav Mukund (captain), B Indrajith (vice-captain), M Vijay, M Kaushik Gandhi, B Aparajith, Vijay Shankar, N Jagadeesan (WK), M S Washington Sundar, R Sai Kishore, Rahil S Shah, K Vignesh, R Ashwin, V Yo Mahesh, L Vignesh, R Rohith (WK) and V Ganga Sridhar Raju.
Mumbai squad: Aditya Tare (captain), Surya Kumar Yadav (Vice Captain), Abhishek Nayar, Akhil Herwadkar, Siddhesh Lad, Jay Bista, Sufiyan Shaikh, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Dhawal Kulkarni, Vijay Gohil, Akash Parkar, Roystan Dias, Mi-nad Manjrekar, Aditya Dhumal.
Players to watch out for
Prithvi Shaw (Mumbai): The youngster created a name for himself scoring a century on his debut and recently scored a half-century against the Kiwis in a practice match, for which he was applauded by pacer Trent Boult.
Jay Bista (Mumbai): Bista, 21, scored a quick-fire 135 runs off 140 balls in Indore against MP and looks in great touch to trouble the Tamil Nadu bowling attack.
Washington Sundar (Tamil Nadu): The 18-year old was impressive during his time with Rising Pune Supergiant in the IPL. The left-hander scored a solid 159 runs off 231 balls against Tripura, helping his team race to a massive first-innings lead.
