After a toil of two months, finally, eight teams viz Karnataka, Mumbai, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bengal, Kerala and Vidarbha qualified for the quarterfinal of the Ranji Trophy 2017/18.
Among the eight teams, undoubtedly, Mumbai and Karnataka are the two of the strongest opponents and incidentally, they are up against each other in the quarterfinal stage.
It will be a cracker of a game between the two teams and the board has also decided to telecast this game out of the four contests that will be played across the country.
Karnataka captain, R Vinay Kumar, showed confidence ahead of the knockout game and has said that the team has all the basis covered, they just need to be careful regarding that extra fifth-day,
“We have all bases covered; it’s not like we’re depending only on fast bowlers or spinners. Because this is a five-day game, we need to be extra careful. There’s always a chance for a team to come back,” he told Sportstar.
In the initial phase of the season, opener Mayank Agarwal suffered a form slump and had scored just 31 runs in first two games, which also included a pair against Hyderabad. Post that game, it was expected that he might be dropped from the team but captain R Vinay Kumar kept faith in him and gave him another chance.
Mayank, who was having a day run until then, grabbed the opportunity with both hands and has scores of 304*, 176, 23, 90, 133*, 173 and 134 alongside his name in past seven innings. He has already crossed the 1000 run mark in the season and is looking forward to a big record,
“Once you start getting runs, your feet will move freely and you’re confident. I hope he continues playing this way. If he does, very soon he might make it to the Indian team. . At the end of the day, in any format, you need to score runs. Look at Sehwag. He played the same way in Tests, ODIs and T20s. If the ball was there to hit, he went for it. And Mayank is doing the same thing,” Vinay Kumar added.
Karnataka, which look a giant force in the contest, is also hoping to gain the services of KL Rahul for the contest as he is neither part of playing XI in the Delhi Test against Sri Lanka nor he is a part of the ODI side.
KSCA has written a letter to BCCI for releasing the right-handed batsman and the decision lies on the board whether to give him rest ahead of T20I and South Africa series or let him play the knockout game for Karnataka.
On the other hand, though, Mumbai will be without experienced bowler Shardul Thakur, who was ruled out due to the shoulder injury which he suffered during the last league stage game for Mumbai against Tripura at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
The fourth quarter-final between Mumbai and Karnataka will be played in Nagpur from December 7 to 11.
Teams –
Karnataka: R Vina Kumar (captain), Karun Nair (vice-captain), Mayank Agarwal, R Samarth, Dega Nischal, Stuart Binny, CM Gautam, Shreyas Gopal, Krishnappa Gowtham, Abhimanyu Mithun, Sreenath Aravind, Pavan Deshpande, Jagadeesha Suchith, Mir Kaunain Abbas, Sharath Srinivas, Ronit More
Mumbai: Aditya Tare (c), Surya Kumar Yadav (VC), Dhawal Kulkarni, Siddhesh Lad, Jay Bista, Prithvi Shaw, Akhil Herwadkar, Sufiyan Shaikh, Akash Parkar, Karsh Kothari, Sagar Trivedi, Vijay Gohil, Shivam Malhotra, Shivam Dube, Shubham Ranjane.
Video of the day –