Soaring Tamil Nadu gears up for home clash against Chhattisgarh in Ranji Trophy

CHENNAI: After a thrilling draw against Delhi in the second round of the ongoing Ranji Trophy, Tamil Nadu will be poised to end its final home game of the year with a convincing victory when it locks horns with Chhattisgarh at SNR College Cricket Ground, Coimbatore on Saturday.

Tamil Nadu had a dream start to its Ranji campaign. It convincingly defeated Saurashtra by an innings and 70 runs. And it would have swept Delhi too if it wasn’t for bad light and the host wasting time in the final day to delay the proceedings, which sparked a lot of controversies.

It was put in to bat in that game and the TN top order just outplayed the Delhi bowling unit for one-and-a-half days. They also fielded for 15-odd overs on the second day and bowled them out on the penultimate day. But on a pitch that wasn’t offering much, their efforts went to vain as Delhi’s Sanat Sangwan along with the tail, did everything possible to end the game in a stalemate denying Tamil Nadu an outright win.

“Right from day one it was commendable for us to look at the boys applying themselves in batting. On a wicket that was not assisting much, we could see the effort our boys put in. We always felt we had the opposition under the collar up until the last over. If only we had a couple of overs more things could have been a lot different,” said TN’s batting coach Tanveer Jabbar speaking to DT Next.

And now, the team has landed back on its home turf where it defeated Saurashtra in the season-opener. In both of its games, Tamil Nadu has only batted one innings. But this time around it won’t have the services of key players like Sai Sudharsan, Washington Sundar, Baba Indrajith and Sai Kishore.

So it will be interesting to see the mix in batting order in which the team will plan to attack. It has a proven Pradosh Ranjan Paul to play up front. But it needs an opener to bat alongside N Jagadeesan.

It also creates a chance for the youngsters like Mohammed Ali, Boopathi Vaishna Kumar, and Andre Siddharth to utilise the chance and command their way into the playing eleven.

Chhattisgarh came into this game with two draws in its account and in a desperate situation to score some points. Its skipper Amandeep Khare slammed a double century (203) along with Sanjeet Desai, who scored 146 runs in its previous encounter against Saurashtra.

But it will have to put up a stern fight against the host, especially with the pace attack led by Gurjapneet Singh, who had a dream debut of 6 for 22 in the same venue last time around.