Patriots begin title defence without Karthik, Mukund

Turi Patriots will begin without senior pros Dinesh Karthik and Abhinav Mukund as they are away on national duty in Sri Lanka. With Lakshmipathy Balaji all set to don a different role in the support staff, the veteran Tamil Nadu pacer won’t be taking the field for the entire tournament. Similarly, on the expected lines, Dragons will miss Ravichandran Ashwin’s services. 

The onus of guiding the defending champion falls on skipper Anand Subramanian and he would be ably supported by Washington Sundar, who is richer for the experience in the Indian Premier League, and M Kaushik Gandhi. 

For the Dragons, Ashwin Venkatraman dons the captain’s role for the first time and with explosive opener N Jagadeesan, who was the man-of-thetournament in the inaugural season and Murugan Ashwin leading the way, Dragons is not short of experience too. 

Both the teams sounded bullish on the eve of the opener. Patriots skipper Ashwin said it is a difficult task to fill the shoes of Karthik and Mukund. “It is obviously difficult to fill their shoes. We have done a lot of homework and we feel we are prepared,” he said. 

Patriots mentor Monty Desai said it was just about doing the right things again. “It is a fresh start for all the teams. It depends on how each team have prepared. We were consistent with our approach and want to do that again,” he said. 

Dragons coach M Venkataramana exuded confidence and said his team has worked on plugging the gaps the team encountered last year. “We are trying to improve on few aspects with our game. If we show 10 to 15 % improvement from last year, we could go to the next level, as in to the final,” the former India international said. Ashwin knows the road ahead is challenging and said he is up to the exciting task of leading his team. “I think my captaincy will be tested in the death overs mostly. It will be challenging and we have our plans in place,” he said.