Published: Dec 29, 2017, 08:00 AM (IST)
Edited: Dec 28, 2017, 08:52 PM (IST)
Hello and welcome to CricketCountry’s live coverage of Ranji Trophy 2017-18 Final. I am Vishal Mehra, your host for the day. The attention shifts to the Holkar Stadium, Indore where Delhi and Vidarbha will battle for India’s supreme domestic shield.
Both the sides will be without their premier pacers who are on national duty. Delhi’s regular skipper Ishant Sharma is expected to start for India at Cape Town while Umesh Yadav may make the cut as the third pacer. However, both the sides have in-form pacers in their camp. It will be a clash between Delhi’s Navdeep Saini (29 wickets this season) against Rajneesh Gurbani (31 wickets).
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Vidarbha’s road to final has been a fairytale. This is the first time they have made it to the tournament final and a chunk of the success goes to Gurbani’s form. They clinched a 5-run victory over the strong Karnataka side that was undefeated in the competition. Will the fairytale continue for Faiz Fazal’s men?
Delhi have the star power. They are eyeing their eighth title win. The last one came a decade back and Gautam Gambhir led them to it. The southpaw still has enough steam left and Bengal got a dose of it in the semi-final. Gambhir slammed his 42nd First-Class hundred to bury Bengal deep. Rishabh Pant, the man who has captained the side in Ishant’s absence, has not produced results like he did last season. Pant’s bat will be itching to join the party. Delhi has an upper hand in head-to-head contests. The sides have met five times and Vidarbha have managed a win only once.
It is going to be pleasant in Indore with temperatures in the early to mid-20s. Though the conditions remain good for batting, early on pacers may get help out of the conditions. It is the one last hurdle. Who will cross?
Squads:
Delhi: Rishabh Pant (c & wk), Aditya Kaushik, Gautam Gambhir, Unmukt Chand, Nitish Rana, Dhruv Shorey, Milind Kumar, Himmat Singh, Manan Sharma, Vikas Mishra, Pulkit Narang, Navdeep Saini, Vikas Tokas, Kulwant Khejroliya, Kunal Chandela, Anuj Rawat, Lalit Yadav, Akash Sudan
Vidarbha: Faiz Fazal (c), Ganesh Satish, Ravi Jangid, Rajneesh Gurbani, Wasim Jaffer, Akshay Karnewar, Lalit M Yadav, Siddesh Neral, Sanjay Ramaswamy, Aditya Sarwate, Jitesh Sharma, Ravikumar Thakur, Akshay Wakhare, Apoorv Wankhade, Siddhesh Wath, Karn Sharma, Shrikant Wagh, Shalabh Shrivastava, Shubham Kapse, Akshay Wadkar (wk)
