Title contenders Delhi will start as firm favourites against an inconsistent Haryana side dogged by injuries in their fourth group league encounter of the Ranji Trophy cricket tournament, in Lahli on Monday. If one goes by the form, Delhi with three facile victories will have their tail up against Haryana, who lost their last game against minnows Odisha by seven wickets on a seamer-friendly track at the Bansi Lal Stadium in Lahli. Delhi on the other hand have produced a near flawless performance on their home turf recording three outright wins, which have put them on top of group B with 20 points. Haryana are currently fourth in the group with nine points from four games with a victory, two defeats and a three-pointer by virtue of first innings lead. But they might find it difficult to get past Delhi, who atleast on paper look overwhelming favourites with in-form Virender Sehwag, Unmukt Chand and skipper Gautam Gambhir in their ranks. The secret of Delhi's brilliant performance at home has been the consistency shown by the top order. While Unmukt has come back to form with back-to-back centuries, Sehwag has a century and 50 plus score to show for his efforts in the last two matches. Not to forget Gambhir's 147 in the opening game against Saurashtra, which set the tone. While the last match against Gujarat saw the spinners Varun Sood and Shivam Sharma coming to the fore, Delhi might get into the match with an unchanged side. While Parvinder Awana, Sumit Narwal and Navdeep Saini have done well with the ball, there is Rajat Bhatia ,who can bowl some mean wicket-to-wicket stuff. For Haryana, their batting has been a problem with opener Rahul Diwan having been ruled out for the season. India discard Amit Mishra, the big-hitting Sunny Singh are also on the injured list. So is seamer Ashish Hooda, while Harshal Patel is out of match practice having only returned on Sunday after attending his sister's marriage. For Haryana, a lot will depend on their seasoned new-ball duo of Mohit Sharma and Joginder Sharma. Bengal to take on Tami Nadu After their disastrous show in two consecutive home matches, bottom placed Bengal will have their best chance to turn it around when they face an equally struggling Tamil Nadu in their Ranji Trophy cricket group A fixture at Eden Gardens on Monday. Bengal could make it count little in the last two home matches as they lost to Karnataka and settled for one point against Mumbai and in both the outings they were made to follow-on by the respective visitors as batting will be a huge concern for the home side. It was against Tamil Nadu last season Bengal had registered a thrilling four-wicket away win to make the last eight as they would definitely look forward to win to boost their sagging morale.
