‘Pressure is on Mumbai’

Defending champions Mumbai have a lot at stake — title, reputation and supremacy in domestic cricket.

The visitors have to erase memories of the defeat they suffered here at the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) stadium against Rest of India in Irani Trophy held a couple of months ago, before taking on home side —Rajasthan, in the quarterfinal of the Ranji Trophy starting on Friday.

While Mumbai are easily the clear favourites here, they cannot afford to take it easy against Rajatshan, who have emerged as a unit and are brimming with confidence. The hosts say they are not overawed by their opponents and will play their normal game as they have nothing to lose after having already achieved the target of entering the elite group.

Rajasthan captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar said, “The pressure is on Mumbai as they are the defending champions. We will play our game like we have played throughout the season. We have not done any special preparation for this particular match.”

Mumbai captain Wasim Jaffer said, “The defeat at this ground in Irani Trophy is a thing of past. We are now playing a new game. Rajasthan have some professionals and the young players have done well this season. So, we have to play good cricket here.”
Both the teams sweated it out at the Rajasthan Cricket Association’s academy grounds on Thursday.

Mumbai suffered a setback with its bowler Dhawal Kulkarni declared unfit for the game. Now, Aavishkar Salvi and experienced Ajit Agarkar are likely to share the new ball. Also, Ajinkya Rahane, who sat out of the last match because of a stomach problem, would play in the match as he is fit now.

Hosts’ pace bowlers Pankaj Singh and Deepak Chahar are hunting in pair and have been very successful this season. But the duo will have their task cut out as they will be bowling to the most formidable batting line-up in domestic cricket, which has players like Jaffer and Rohit Sharma.

Teams
Mumbai: Wasim Jaffer (C), Ajinkya Rahane, Sahil Kukreja, Rohit Sharma, Abhishek Nayar, Omkar Gurav (wk), Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Avishkar Salvi, Prashant Naik, Iqbal Abdullah, Javed Khan, Suryakumar Yadav, Santosh Shinde, Aquib Shaikh

Rajasthan: Hrishikesh Kanitkar (C), Aakash Chopra, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Robin Bisht, Rohit Jhalani, Pankaj Singh, Deepak Chahar, Gajendra Singh, Raman Chahar, Madhur Khatri, Vaibhav Deshpande, Sumit Mathur, Puneet Yadav, Vineet Saxena, Vivek Yadav, Dishant Harendra Yagnik