Hosts look for revenge

PUNE, Feb 22: Maharashtra and Orissa will lock horns in the Ranji Trophy Super League GroupB' match at the Poona Club here tomorrow.The ...

PUNE, Feb 22: Maharashtra and Orissa will lock horns in the Ranji Trophy Super League GroupB8217; match at the Poona Club here tomorrow.

The visitors are riding high on their outright win against Maharashtra in their last match at Cuttack, the only time the teams have met in the last decade. But the hosts have a different notion altogether. Playing on their home turf, they are geared up for the match with some clear cut measures. Besides avenging their outright defeat in 1997-98, they are also looking forward to top the pool with this match for a direct entry into the semi-finals.

However, the main morale booster for Maharashtra has been their first innings win against Railways away from home. This has been pulled off by the former for the first time in the last seven years.

Orissa might not be among the front runners for the trophy, but they have their own reasons to feel quite comfortable in the battle. With international Debashish Mohanty and Sanjay Raul, besides the consistent batsman SS Das who is fresh from a hundred against Railways in their opening encounter of the championship where they mustered five points, they are no push-overs.

Maharashtra are using their strike bowlers as the main weapon. Of the 56 wickets that they have taken in this season, 54 are to the credit of the seamers. And with Siddiqui making a remarkable comeback with six wickets after being rested for the first match against Delhi, along with Sachin Nair showing great form after his memorable five-wicket debut against Delhi, they have reasons to feel good about their attack. Milind Kulkarni will complete the trio.

After the bad patch by opener Hemant Kinikar, the Maharashtra think tank are set to replace him with Niranjan Godbole. Umesh Ghotkhindkar and the injured Satyen Lande will make way for Inderjeet Kamtekar and off-spinner Mahindra Gokhale who is making his debut in the first class cricket. Jaideep Narse has been the first choice for Maharashtra to strengthen their middle-order batting. Jaideep has been in the team, but has never really got the chance to prove his prowess.

The batting line-up will be spearheaded by Abhijit Kale who is in good nick after the two consecutive hundreds one each against Delhi and Railways with good support from skipper Surendra Bhave and former captain Shantanu Sugwekar.

Story continues below this ad

There is no doubt that the toss winning captain will opt for bowling as both were of the same opinion on the wicket which does have some grass on it. 8220;It will be fielding,8221; said the State skipper Surendra Bhave. And it was in the same tone that the visiting manager Daniel Raut said, 8220;We will put them to bat first8221;.

The Teams
Maharashtra from: Surendra Bhave capt, Niranjan Godbole, Abhijit Kale, Shantanu Sugvekar, Siddharth Godbole, Jaideep Narse, Sanjay Kondhalkar WK, Mahendra Gokhale, Iqbal Siddiqui, Sachin Nair, Milind Kulkarni, Inderjit Kamtekar. Manager: Shyam Oak.

Orissa: Sanjay Raul capt, Shiv Sunder Das, Debashish Mohanty, R Parida, Prabharanjan Mulick, P Jaychandra, Gautam Gopal WK, Saheed Khan, Ajay Barik, Pradeep Das, Sanjay Satpathy, Prashant Mahapatra, Jagannath Das, Robin Morris, BBCC Mahapatra. Manager: Daniel Raut. Coach: L B Mahapatra.

Umpires: Raghavan and Dhandapani. Match Referee: Keshav Murthy Karnataka.