No clear favourites

For once Tamil Na­­du will be under pressure when they take on Maharashtra in the third round of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group ‘B’ match to be played at MA Chidambaram Stadium, from Sa­turday.

Tamil Nadu with just two po­­ints from two outings are un­­der immense pressure to de­liver in the  third round of the league phase. Although the team has got ov­­er the sh­­o­­ck of conceding the lead to Karnataka after making  538, they are despera­­te to bag ma­­x­­imum points ag­ainst Mahar­a­­shtra.

But Maharashtra are no bu­­nny after their splendid show against Uttar Pradesh in the pr­evious round where they sc­ored 764, with Kedar Jh­ad­­av making a triple cent­u­ry ag­­­­ainst an attack comprising  the likes of Bhuvaneshwar K­u­­­­­­­­mar, Sudeep Tyagi and leggie Piyush Chawla.

“Yes there is pressure, but we will definitely go for full po­­ints. We have moved over from the last game . It was a go­od batting display (against Karnataka). 538 runs was a good score. But we failed to restrict Karnataka,” said TN captain Laxmipathy Balaji.

“The boys (bowlers) would ha­ve learnt a lesson and would know to go about the job in f­uture. We will be strengtheni­ng our attack, there will be a couple of changes keeping in mind the wicket and conditi­o­ns,” he added.

There is every possibility of Au­shik Shrinivas, the most ex­perienced spinner being ba­ck in the squad. He may come in place of a batsman or M As­win who was not up to the m­ark.

Yo Mahesh too may get the no­d ahead of Mohammed, for he is more nippy and has vast ex­perience in all the form­a­­t­s. The inclusion of all-rounde­r S Suresh Kumar could give an­­other option, but the probl­em for the think-tank is whom to drop.

The return of Vijay has gi­­v­­en Tamil Nadu’s batting go­­o­d depth and his inclusion could at the cost of Arun Ka­­r­­thik or Prasanna; both of whom had scored half-centur­ies in the previous  game.

It looks like Arun have to ma­­ke the way for Vijay as Prasanna is good at batting lower down the order under pressure.

Maharashtra would wish th­at their openers click. They w­ould depend heavily once again on triple centurion Jadhav to put a big score against TN. Atitkar, Bawne and Motw­ani will be the other batsmen to watch out for the TN spinn­ers.

Toss is crucial as the team t­hat wins will certainly bat f­irst. The wicket (more of red s­oil) will offer a keen contest b­etween the bat and the ball, with bowlers calling the sh­ots.