The Group A of Ranji Trophy has always been called and recognised as the ‘group of death’ as Group A contains the strongest teams of the Ranji Trophy. Only the team winning more number of matches sustains in Group A and rest of the teams gets relegated to Group B or Group C, according to the points in their respective account.
A team thrives to climb to Group A and face some of the best teams present in Ranji Trophy as being in group A is a special feeling in itself. The players in this group gain special attention and attraction. Even the national selectors prefer to watch the matches of teams present in Group A as these teams create more interest, drama and competitive spirit in their games. The games between the teams in Group A are a delight to watch. This does not mean that the matches of Group B and Group C are dull or boring but the thing that teams present in Group A have a number of international level players present in their team.
The presence of any international star in the team does not affect an ardent fan but a person who watches domestic cricket occasionally, for him the presence of an international star is of utmost importance.
This year teams 9 teams viz. Baroda, Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai, Punjab, Railways, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are a part of a supreme group of Ranji Trophy. The team will ill not only just fight out to win Ranji Trophy but also have a race against each other to sustain in Group A for the next year.
Let’s have a look at the squads and players to look out for in Group A –
Baroda – Irfan Pathan(c), Aditya Waghmode, Kedar Devdhar, Deepak Hooda, Yusuf Pathan, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Swapnil Singh, Munaf Patel, Gagandeep Singh, Pinal Shah, M Sagar, Rohan Bhosale, Dhiren Mistry, Vishnu Solanki.
Players to watch out for – Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya.
Gujarat – Parthiv Patel(c), Priyank Panchal, Hardik Patel, Chirag Gandhi, RP Singh, Karan Patel, Mehul Patel, Rujul Bhatt, Dhruv Raval, Bhargav Merai, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Rush Kalaria, Samit Gohel, Manpreet Juneja.
Players to watch out for – Axar Patel, Rush Kalaria.
Mumbai – Aditya Tare(c), Kaustubh Pawar, Akhil Herwadkar, Jay Bista, Arman Jaffer, Suryakumar Yadav, Abhishek Nayar, Balwinder Sandhu, Sufiyan Shaikh, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shardul Thakur, Nikhil Patel, Tushar Deshpande, Vijay Gohil, Vishal Dabholkar.
Players to watch out for – Jay Bista, Armaan Jaffer, Balwinder Sandhu
Madhya Pradesh – Devendra Bundela(c), Shubham Sharma, Rameez Khan, Aditya Shrivastava, C Sakure, Ankit Sharma, Mukul Raghav, Ashwin Das, Rajat Patidar, Ankit Dane, Saransh Jain, Gaurav Yadav, Ishwar Pandey, Harpreet Singh, Mihir Hirwani.
Players to watch out for – Mihir Hirwani, Aditya Shrivastava
Punjab – Yuvraj Singh (c), Harbhajan Singh, Manan Vohra, Arpit Pannu, Mayank Sidhana, Vinay Choudhary, Shubham Gill, Manpreet Gony, Sandeep Sharma, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Rajwinder Singh, Jiwanjot Singh, Mandeep Singh, G Khera, Siddarth Kaul, Uday Kaul.
Players to watch out for – Manan Vohra, Sandeep Sharma, Jiwanjot Singh, Mandeep Singh
Railways – Ranjit Mali, Anureet Singh, Ashish Yadav, Deepak Bansal, V Cheluvaraj, Mrunal Devdhar, Nikhil Doru, Arindam Ghosh, Gaurav Khatri, Manjeet Singh, Akshat Pandey, Mahesh Rawat, Karn Sharma, Shivakant Shukla, Saurabh Wakaskar.
Players to watch out for – Anureet Singh, Karn Sharma
Tamil Nadu – Abhinav Mukund(c), Kaushik Gandhi, Baba Aparajith, Dinesh Karthick, Baba Indrajith, Washington Sundar, J Kousik, Malolan Rangarajan, Aswin Crist, M Mohammad, K Vignesh, T Natarajan, L Suryaprakash, Aushik Srinivas, N Jagadeesan, Rahil Shah.
Players to watch out for – Washington Sundar, Abhinav Mukund, Baba Aprajith
Uttar Pradesh – Suresh Raina (c), Sarfaraz Khan, Praveen Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Eklavya Dwivedi, Amit Mishra, Tanmay Srivastava, Imtiaz Ahmed, Deependra Pandey, Saif Mohammad, Samarth Singh, Almas Shaukat, Saurabh Kumar, Ankit Rajpoot, Israr Azim.
Players to watch out for – Sarfaraz Khan, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammad Saif, Ankit Rajpoot
Bengal – Manoj Tiwary(c), Shreevats Goswami, Agniv Pan, Pankaj Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sayan Mondal, Sudip Chatterjee, Ashok Dinda, Mukesh Kumar, Veer Pratap Singh, Aamir Gani, Writtick Chatterjee, Ayan Bhattacharjee, Pragyan Ojha, Ishan Porel, Prosenjit Das.
Players to watch out for – Amir Gani, Ishan Porel