Mumbai look to regain mojo, and title

Mumbai

By Abhishek Purohit

Where they finished last season
Third in Group A with four wins, one defeat and three draws. Lost outright to Maharashtra in the quarter-final.

Mumbai had taken a 122-run first-innings lead over Maharashtra at Wankhede Stadium before they were shot out for 129 to lose by eight wickets. Mumbai teams are not expected to go down in knockout matches, that too at home against their neighbours. Sulakshan Kulkarni was removed as coach, and Pravin Amre has been brought back.

Abhishek Nayar, who led when Zaheer Khan was absent last season, has been demoted to vice-captain. Suryakumar Yadav is Mumbai's latest captain after Wasim Jaffer declined to lead. With the unavailability of Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma, Mumbai will continue to look to Jaffer for the big scores, along with Aditya Tare and Yadav. Nayar will need to rebound from atrocious performances in 2013-14. There are some new faces such as India Under-19 batsman Shreyas Iyer but the experienced Hiken Shah has been overlooked for the opening game.

Zaheer's return from another injury is still uncertain, but Dhawal Kulkarni, who managed just one game last season, is available. He will be supported by Shardul Thakur and Javed Khan. Vishal Dabholkar, with 39 wickets last season, will handle spinning duties along with Iqbal Abdulla while Nayar can always be relied upon to bowl tireless spells of medium-pace.

Four hundreds in 25 first-class games do not do justice to Suryakumar Yadav's immense talent. Often, he threatens to shred attacks with his range of strokes before throwing it away. He knows the added responsibility of captaincy will require him to control his instincts but has also said he will not alter his game much.

Teamspeak
"We have had some of the greatest captains like Ajit Wadekar, Madhav Mantri, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar. The list just goes on. I know our history; stepping into their shoes is a huge ask." - Mumbai captain Suryakumar Yadav

Odisha finished sixth in Group A, on the back of a victory and four draws. The outright victory helped them finish above Vidarbha, Haryana and Jharkhand.

Ever since the change in title from Orissa to Odisha, the eastern minnows have started to improve their performance. After finishing in the middle of their group in Ranji Trophy last year, Odisha qualified for the Vijay Hazare Trophy knockouts last month. More than rechristening themselves, what has worked for the team is the involvement of two of the biggest cricket icons from the state. Debasis Mohanty and SS Das brought the state on cricketing map with their contributions in international cricket. And the duo has been roped in as head coach and batting coach respectively. The two have started to get the best out of an under-rated lot of players.

After proving their mettle as a one-day side, Odisha are keen on improving their stature as a first-class side. The fortunes of the side will largely depend on how Natraj Behera, Govind Podder, Biplab Samantray and Basant Mohanty perform as a group. If the rest of the squad members chip in to aid these four key players, then Odisha will hope to compete in the toughest group of this season.

Biplab Samantray may have been replaced as the captain this season but the allrounder is still the main player for his side. As was evident during the just-concluded Deodhar Trophy, Samantray has established himself as a genuine allrounder in the shorter formats. But he would be keen to improve on his showing with the ball in the Ranji Trophy. His 433 runs with the bat were acceptable but a tally of six wickets from seven games was far from being satisfactory.

"Doing well in the one-dayers has been a morale-booster for the team. It's important to translate that form into Ranji Trophy," SS Das, the batting coach, said. "For that to happen, we will have to start well and our first game is against a tough opponent like Maharashtra. If we can do well in the first match, we can hope for turning this season into a memorable one."

Bengal


 By Devashish Fuloria

Semi-finalists. Lost to Maharashtra.

One has to strive hard to come up with big names from the Bengal team after Sourav Ganguly's retirement, but there are enough performers in the squad. Five of them were in the East Zone squad that lifted the Deodhar Trophy this year; two of them have played for India in the recent times, and looked in great nick during the tournament. But the big question will be how much Bengal can extract from them in an extremely tough group.

Manoj Tiwary brought his rich form from Vijay Hazare into the Deodhar Trophy, smashing his way to 151 and 75 in two outings, and reminded the selectors that when he is not injured, he is still one of the top batsmen in the country. But it's not just Tiwary who has been among runs. Shreevats Goswami has been scoring heavily in the one-dayers this season and there will always be the dangerous Laxmi Shukla to spring a surprise or two from the lower order.

The bowling will again revolve around Ashok Dinda who, admirably, has only one intensity level and it is pretty high. Along with Veer Pratap Singh, Dinda forms a potent opening combination backed up by Shukla and spinners Iresh Saxena and the experienced Saurasish Lahiri.

Player to watch


Sudip Chatterjee, the left-hand batsman, has played just eight first-class matches over three seasons and is yet to make a century in any form. In the Duleep Trophy quarter-final this year, he was run out one short of hundred in the second innings but that innings - his best in first-class cricket - did enough for the Bengal coach to name him as the one to watch out for this season.

"The first challenge will be to qualify for the knockouts as the group is really difficult. There is Karnataka, who are the best side at the moment, but there is Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Baroda, MP etc."
Ashok Malhotra, the Bengal coach