Hosts eye last chance

PUNE, Jan 5: It was heartening to see all the three Maharashtra selectors — Hemant Kanitkar, Vittal Joshi and Arvind Mehendale looking over the proceedings and lending a helping hand to the players instead of their high-handedness on the eve of the host’s last outing against Baroda in the West Zone Ranji Trophy cricket league to be played at the Poona Club ground.

This match, as well as the simultaneous Mumbai-Saurashtra match at Mumbai, will decide the third team from the West Zone to enter the Super League stage (the first three teams from each zone enter the stage). Maharashtra, who have garnered 10 points from three matches, will have to win this match outright or take a first innings lead and hope that Saurashtra, who have got 14 points lose to Mumbai in their last match.

TEAMS

MAHARASHTRA: (from): Shantanu Sugvekar (captain), Surendra Bhave (vice-captain), Sanjay Kondhalkar (wicket-keeper), Hemant Kinikar, Abhijit Kale, Santosh Jedhe, Indrajeet Kamtekar, Mandar Sane, Milind Kulkarni, Iqbal Siddique, Parag Chitale, Ashutosh Agashe, Rahul Kanade, Niranjan Godbole, Shekar Gavli.

BARODA: (from): Kiran More (captain – wicket-keeper), Tushar Arote (vice-captain, Atul Bedade, Martin Jacob, Connor Williams, R Swaroop, M Kadri, Ajit Bohite, Darshan Mulherkar, Satyajit Parab, Arjun Chavada, Yogesh Wakaskar, Kunal Hazare, Bobby Badola.