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Ranji Trophy: Mumbai up for Gujarat challenge

Times have changed. It’s 2018. And teams now talk of Mumbai as a ‘good’ team and that it will be a good contest between the two sides.

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Mumbai players will be keen to put their team back to winning ways
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There was a time when teams visiting Mumbai (or Bombay) hardly nursed any optimism about their chances against the Ranji Trophy powerhouse. Forget the thought of a fight, the teams did not feel equal to their towering opponents.

Times have changed. It’s 2018. And teams now talk of Mumbai as a ‘good’ team and that it will be a good contest between the two sides.

Blame it on Mumbai’s not-up-to-the-mark performances in domestic cricket in the last few years or other team’s catching up and making their presence felt. The competition between Mumbai and others have become a battle of equals. The era of putting money on Mumbai as favourites to win the Ranji Trophy season is over.

On Tuesday morning, Gujarat players, whose team logo is a rooster, walked around the iconic stadium Wankhede like lions. And why not? Of three wins, Priyank Panchal-led outfit has one outright win (against Baroda) and two draws.

In one of the draws they stole first innings three points from Chhattisgarh while conceded them against Saurashtra.

On the other hand, Mumbai has a lot to worry about. The champions of Vijay Hazare Trophy, 2018, are yet to open their winning account. They may not have their international stars like Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Prithvi Shaw and Shreyas Iyer, away on national duty. But that has always been the case with the champion team.

Against Railways, they got the first innings points. Karnataka, in the last game, almost gave them a scare. If not for Suryakumar Yadav’s gritty 118-ball 53 and his fifth-wicket stand for 46 run stand with Aditya Tare (29) saved Mumbai from a defeat.

Despite no Rohit, Rahane, Shaw or Iyer, Mumbai’s batting can be more reliable than their bowling, which has been struggling in the recent times.

To make batting stronger, selectors have called upon stylish batsman Armaan Jaffer, who is nephew of former India batsman and Mumbai captain Wasim Jaffer. Armaan comes to team following his triple hundred in CK Nayudu U-23 after returning a year break, thanks to ligament injury.

“Armaan has got that patience. He has got a good game and is in good form considering he has scored 300 and it’s not a small thing in U-23 age group. He appears confident and even we are confident, if he plays tomorrow, he will do well,” said stand-in Mumbai captain Dhawal Kulkarni.

The middle-order may remain the same, but there is a possibility of a change in the top order.

Mumbai’s concern has been their bowling though. Especially spinners.

They have struggled to find good spinners and whoever has been given the break has not delivered up to the promises.

After persisting with left-arm spinner Vijay Gohil last two years, Mumbai has now switched to another slow left-arm spinner Karsh Kothari. He hasn’t been impressive in terms of wickets, but retaining him in the squad for this game is a sign of selectors still keeping the faith in the youngster.

Not all is bad. Mumbai has got their pacer inform pacer Tushar Deshpande, who missed the last game due to hamstring injury, back.

For Gujarat, this game will be without their senior pro Parthiv Patel, in Australia with the Indian team, but they are confident. And all the more so, for having earned the bragging rights after defeating Mumbai in Ranji final in 2016-17 in Indore.

Live on Star Sports 2
09:30 Mumbai vs Gujarat

Playing today

Elite

Group A: n In Raipur: Chhattisgarh vs Vidarbha; In Mysore: Karnataka vs Maharashtra; In Mumbai: Mumbai vs Gujarat; In Rajkot: Saurashtra vs Baroda

Group B: n In Delhi: Delhi vs Punjab; In Hyderabad: Hyderabad vs Himachal Pradesh; IN Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala vs Madhya Pradesh; In Chennai: Tamil Nadu vs Bengal

Group C: n In Guwahati: Assam vs Haryana; In Porvorim: Goa vs Jharkhand; In Cuttack: Odisha vs Tripura; In Delhi: Services vs Jammu & Kashmir; In Kanpur: Uttar Pradesh vs Rajasthan

Plate Group

In Goalpara: Arunachal Pradesh vs Uttarakhand; In Patna: Bihar vs Sikkim; In Kolkata: Manipur vs Meghalaya; In Puducherry: Puducherry vs Mizoram

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