home matches this season but coach WV Raman feels it will help bring the players together The only team to play all their Ranji matches away from home,Tamil Nadu,it seems,are at home in the Karnail Singh Stadium. A day ahead of their season opener against Railways,nobody seems to care about not playing back home in Chennai. Not at least coach WV Raman,who says its a blessing in disguise. Given the format of these four-day matches,lot many times the host teams get their groundsmen to prepare pitches favouring their style of play. But with Tamil Nadu it is clearly different. In a way it is good for us. Well spend more time as a team and its good for bonding and spirit, says Raman after finishing with fielding drills. At times you can come under pressure playing at home. You get many well wishers who tell you to do so many things, he adds. The clarity in his thought gives way to doubts over Dinesh Karthiks availability for this game. Karthik was called in as cover for the ongoing India-Australia seven match one day series for the opening slot because of injuries sustained by both Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. But he wasnt named in the playing eleven for the fourth one-dayer against in Mohali. Hopes of his starting against Railways have significantly improved. Apart from this,last years losing semi-finalists have a settled combination. Abhinav Mukund,Murali Vijay,Laxmipathy Balaji,Arun Kartik and Dinesh,who were very successful last season,make them a formidable outfit. But the mood is slightly different in the opposition camp. Several new faces have been drafted in by the hosts during the off-season. Opener Faiz Fazal,the former Vidarbha captain,will get his first chance to play in the Elite Division. Marripuri Suresh,the leg-spinner will also start and so will TP Singh,who will be playing his first Ranji game in over two years. In fact Sanjib Sanyal,who was the teams vice-captain last year,was only drafted into the playing XI because Karn Sharma is down with viral fever. ch the same There were so many questions raised on the Ferozeshah Kotla pitch both during the Champions League matches and also during the third one-dayer between India and Australia . But when it comes to the Karnail Singh Stadium track,there seems to be uniformity in the thought that it will play the same. The hosts are said to field three spinners on Tuesday. Apart from the skipper and Suresh,Kulamani Parida will have to share the responsibility of seeing the team through in this tough encounter. Shailender Gehlot,who will be making his Railways debut,is the sole medium pacer in the side. Sanjay Bangar and Sanyal will bowl seam up. If the Tamil Nadu side want to start their season on a positive note,Railwayss skipper Murali Karthik is keen on playing the control game. We are only concerned about playing good cricket on all four days. Theres no point of thinking too far ahead. We will look to control the sessions, he says.
