A resolute Madhya Pradesh is confronted with the daunting activity of taming Vidarbha of their house floor, which the hosts have became an impregnable citadel this season, when the acquainted foes conflict within the Ranji Trophy semifinal in Nagpur on March 2.
Two-time champions Vidarbha have performed 4 matches on the VCA Stadium this season, they usually have received three of them with the solitary defeat coming in opposition to Saurashtra.
Those victories have include convincing margins too — seven wickets in opposition to Services, 115 runs in opposition to Haryana and 127 runs in opposition to Karnataka within the quarterfinals.
The largest power of Vidarbha all through this season has been the collective contribution of their batsmen.
They have discovered completely different heroes in veteran Karun Nair (515 runs), import from Delhi Dhruv Shorey (496), top-order batter Atharva Taide (488) and skipper Akshay Wadkar (452). All of them have bailed them out of the woods on completely different events.
The Nagpur pitch has typically acted as an ally of the batters however Vidarbha have additionally been lucky to have the companies of two lion-hearted bowlers – pacer Aditya Thakare and left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate.
They have grabbed 68 wickets collectively thus far this season, seldom permitting their opponents to dictate the course of the match.
Sarwate’s four-wicket burst in opposition to Karnataka is a pointer.
Karnataka had reached 103 for 1 whereas chasing 371 at shut on Day 4, however Sarwate bowled a wonderful spell on the fifth day to bundle out the guests for 243.
But then giving an upper-hand to Vidarbha primarily based on that bull run at house might be a tad not truthful as properly.
Madhya Pradesh, the 2022 champions, have walked by way of rings of fireplace to enter the final 4 stage.
They managed simply three outright wins in eight league matches whereas fiercely battling in different video games to acquire first innings lead.
Even of their quarterfinal match in opposition to Andhra, MP had been on the point of elimination earlier than clawing again to eke out a four-run win.
The largest optimistic for them this season has been the renewed starvation for runs proven by Venkatesh Iyer. Having misplaced his approach within the India scheme of issues, Iyer has amassed 528 runs at a mean of 52 with 100 and 4 fifties.
The left-hander has been well-supported by Himanshu Mantri (513) and Yash Dubey (510). They have shouldered the duty of MP’s batting within the absence of Rajat Patidar, who’s away on nationwide responsibility.
MP’s bowling will revolve across the versatile Kumar Kartikeya, who can bowl each orthodox left-arm spin in addition to the left-arm wrist spin model.
The Mumbai Indians all-rounder has contributed 38 wickets to his staff’s bowling chart this yr.
Veteran off-spinner Saransh Jain (27 wickets) and left-arm pacer Kulwant Khejroliya (26 wickets) have backed Kartikeya ably.
But past these, the most important power of MP is the presence of astute tactician Chandrakant Pandit, their head coach.
The stern taskmaster is aware of how to get the very best from his wards below stress.
In truth, Vidarbha gamers will vouch for that as a result of it was Pandit who orchestrated their title run in two successive seasons – 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Teams (from):
Vidarbha: Atharva Taide, Dhruv Shorey, Yash Rathod, Karun Nair, Akshay Wadkar (wk/captain), Mohit Kale, Aditya Sarwate, Harsh Dubey, Yash Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Faiz Fazal, Akshay Wakhare, Sanjay Raghunath, Rajneesh Gurbani, Lalit M Yadav, Siddhesh Wath, Jitesh Sharma, Darshan Nalkande, Shubham Dubey.
Madhya Pradesh: Yash Dubey, Himanshu Mantri (wk), Harsh Gawli, Shubham S Sharma (captain), Venkatesh Iyer, Sumit Kushwah, Saransh Jain, Anubhav Agarwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Avesh Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Amarjeet Singh, Aditya Shrivastava, Mihir Hirwani, Rishabh Chouhan, Aryan Pandey.
Match begins at 9.30 AM.
