Stars twiddle thumbs as Mumbai take on Karnataka

Vijay Bharadwaj continues to be on the injured list after he hurt his back in Australia. Unless the others too are similarly injured, their keeping away from this needle match is unpardonable.

Surely this match has a far more competitive flavour than the ABCD (Challenger Trophy) tournament the Board has made mandatory for the players. In fact, it would have put the players in the right frame of mind for the longer duration games. Instead, after a flurry one-day cricket (Australia Tri-series, Deodhar Trophy, Wills Trophy, Under-19 World Cup), the Board diktat leads one to believe that more limited overs cricket is the best way to prepare for the tough Test series at home against South Africa later this month!

While still on this, KSCA will hopefully do some plain speaking and tell its stars it can do without them for the next game against Rajasthan also.

Watch out for Kambli: Mumbai, without Tendulkar and Ajit Agarkar, will depend on the in-form Vinod Kambli and Amol Muzumdar. They have a number of other batsmen who can string together a decent score on a track that is expected to crumble early. The pitch has a superficial green look about it. In all probability, the grass on top might just be sprinkled about to give it that deceptive look.

Former Indian medium pacer Abey Kuruvilla will spearhead the visitor’s bowling which also features another former Test player, Nilesh Kulkarni and his fellow left-arm spinner Rajesh Pawar.

Karnataka are expected to play two seamers and two spinners. Their opening batsman, J Arun Kumar, is in rollicking touch. He and Thilak Naidu have performed well this season and on them depends the home team’s fortunes. Medium pacers Dodda Ganesh and Mansoor Ali Khan have also bowled consistently and could be chosen ahead of David Johnson and GN Umesh.

For the youngsters from either side, this match would be a wonderful opportunity to grab the headlines. But the stuff that dreams are made of could have come true only if a smashing Sachin Tendulkar had taken on a charged up Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble.

Teams

Karnataka (from): Sunil Joshi (captain), J Arun Kumar, Beerala, Barrington, A Vijay, S Somasundar, Thilak Naidu, S Shiraguppi, A Yalvigi, D Ganesh, GN Umesh, Mansoor Ali Khan, Katti, D Johnson, Akhil.

Mumbai (from): Sameer Dighe (captain), Amol Mazumdar, Vinod Kambli, Jatin Paranjpe, Abey Kuruvilla, Shriram Kannan, Amit Dani, Nilesh Kulkarni, Rajesh Pawar, Wasim Jaffer, Amol Rane, Sushanth Manjrekar, Ramesh Powar, Santosh Saxena, Amit Pagnis.

Umpires: MS Mahal and HS Sekhon. Match referee: Sunit Ghosh.

Hours of play: 9.30 to 12; 12.40 to 2.40; 3 to 4.30