Domestic giants Mumbai will be eyeing their first ‘home’ win of the season when they take on Uttar Pradesh in their Elite Group B Ranji Trophy at the Wankhede Stadium here from Sunday.
Mumbai will continue to miss the services of regular skipper Suryakumar Yadav and young prodigy Prithvi Shaw, who are with the India A squad in New Zealand.
Also, Shreyas Iyer, all-rounder Shivam Dube and pacer Shardul Thakur are also unavailable for the game, as they are on national duty.
Hence, although the task gets tougher, Mumbai’s morale should be high, as they were able to grab crucial three points against a full strength Tamil Nadu team, which had the likes of Abhinav Mukund, Dinesh Karthik and ace off-spinner R Ashwin.
This season has been a roller coaster ride for Mumbai.
They began the campaign with a huge 309 run victory against Baroda and then were thrashed by Railways by 10 wickets at Wankhede Stadium and later were convincingly beaten by arch rivals Karnataka at the BKC.
They then took the first innings lead against Tamil Nadu at Chepauk.
The onus will be again on experienced batsman-keeper Aditya Tare to lead from the front.
But young guns like Bhupen Lalwani could see the game as an opportunity to cement their spots in the side.
Mumbai spin duo of Shams Mulani and offie Shashank Attarde have been in good form and would be more than eager to put up a strong show.
Mumbai also have a decent pace attack, which can be effective in the morning hours.
On the other hand, Uttar Pradesh have played five games so far and have drawn four, while winning just one versus Saurashtra at Rajkot, where they recorded a victory by an innings and 72 runs.
The visitors would aim to give a tough fight to Mumbai, who are the favourites to record season’s second outright win.
Bengal look to bounce back
Kalyani (West Bengal): Desperately eyeing a return to winning ways, Bengal will rely on their spinners to do the trick against a struggling Hyderabad in their Ranji Trophy fixture here from Sunday.
Bengal suffered a humiliating nine-wicket defeat to Vidarbha inside two days in an away fixture in the last round, slipping to eighth position in the cross pool of Group A and B teams.
With five teams set to make the cut for the quarterfinals, the task for the Arun Lal-coached side has become all the more challenging.
Bengal failed to take any advantage of the home conditions, settling for three points in their last two outings, against Andhra and Gujarat at the Eden Gardens.
Bengal have now gone for a spin-friendly track at the Kalyani Stadium, about 70-kms from here, hoping to win a match.
Under-23 batsman Kazi Junaid Saifi, who was initially named in the squad against Gujarat before being sent back for the Col. CK Nayudu Trophy matches, has been drafted in. With Ritwik Roy Chowdhury injured, he is likely to make his Ranji debut.
Left-hander Saifi got the nod after scoring 534 runs to help Bengal win the National U-23 one-day tournament this season.
“You can’t control things like injury. The batters have prepared well for the game and we just need to get couple of hundreds if we can.”
Bengal will also look up to the veteran Utpal Chatterjee, who will assist the side for the Hyderabad match, with bowling coach Ranadeb Bose being left out.
Hyderabad have been one of the weak teams of the group with the Arjun Yadav-coached team losing four of the five matches this season to sit at the bottom of the table.