E-Paper
Litmus test for captain, coach as UP take on Andhra in opening Ranji tie
The biggest advantage for Uttar Pradesh is that they are playing their three home games on familiar turf of the Green Park Stadium
The pressure of performance would be on both skipper Karan Sharma and coach Arvind Kapoor when former champions Uttar Pradesh take on Andhra Pradesh in their opening Ranji Trophy match of the new domestic season, beginning Wednesday, at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur.
Despite his dull show last season, Delhi-boy Sharma has superseded in-form Aryan Juyal, who had scored 700 plus runs, and same is the case with Kapoor, who has got himself fitted in the post even though Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association has many people with proven track record for the post like Ashish Winston Zaidi, Gyanendra Pandey and Rizwan Shamshad.
“All eyes will be on these two as much is expected from them this time. We hope that the two come out with flying colours in the first match itself,” said a senior member of the selection panel on condition of anonymity on Tuesday.
Uttar Pradesh, who had won their maiden Ranji Trophy title in 2005-06, had a poor sixth place finish last season, and the team never got going easy and played many draw games. But this time, the biggest advantage for Uttar Pradesh is that they are playing their three home games on familiar turf of the Green Park Stadium, whereas their fourth home match will be played in Meerut.
In fact, this year’s Ranji Trophy isn’t going to make much of a difference as India will be playing just two Tests in November on the home turf and a change in Team India on the basis of Ranji Trophy performance is unlikely. But, the Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy can help top performers draw the attention of the national selectors as India would be co-hosting the T20 World Cup in February-March.
As it happened in the last season, in the new season too, the Ranji Trophy will be played in two phases with the first one, featuring five rounds, runs from October 15 to November 19, followed by a switch to white-ball cricket with the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20s between November 26 to December 18 and the Vijay Hazare Trophy from December 26 to January 18. The domestic season will end with the resumption of the Ranji Trophy with two more rounds from January 22 to February 1, before the knockouts, with the final ending on February 28.
The format is similar to last season too as the 32 Elite teams are divided into four groups of eight, with the top two from each group making it to the quarter-finals, whereas the six Plate teams will compete in a round-robin format, with the top two teams competing in the final.
As far as Uttar Pradesh’s history in Ranji Trophy is concerned, their maiden first-class came as early as 1939-40, when the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) reached the Ranji Trophy final, marking themselves as a force in pre-independence cricket . The 1977-78 and 1997-98 seasons saw UP finish as Ranji Trophy runner-up, pushing traditional heavyweights to the brink but ultimately missing out on the title.
The team’s breakthrough arrived dramatically in the 2005-06 season, when Uttar Pradesh lifted their maiden Ranji Trophy after a string of comeback victories . That side, led by Mohammad Kaif and inspired by all-round efforts from players like Praveen Kumar and Sudeep Tyagi, etched their names in domestic folklore with a gritty, against-the-odds run to the trophy. They subsequently made further Ranji Trophy finals in 2007-08 and 2008-09, strengthening their credentials as regular contenders under Gyanendra Pandey’s coaching.
The team has also tasted success in one-day cricket, winning the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2002-03 with Suresh Raina leading the side and being joint-winners in 2004-05.
For this season, the selectors chose to rely on tried and tested ones for the longer version of the game, and it would be interesting to see how Karan Sharma and Co make use of the home advantage in the first match itself. Andhra on the other hand will also be aiming for a good start under the leadership of their top batter Ricky Bhui, but they would mostly be dependent on their debutante all-rounder Saurabh Kumar, who being a regular one of the UP team till last season, knows the black soil turf of the Green Park Stadium quite well.
