The 2016-17 edition of the Ranji Trophy has come to the fag end as there are only four teams left in the tournament. In the semi-finals of this year’s tournament, defending champions, Mumbai take on a resurgent Tamil Nadu while giant-killers Gujarat take on the underdogs Jharkhand at Rajkot and Nagpur respectively.
All the four teams are coming into the semi-finals on the back of some consistent performance in the last 12 weeks. With no clear favourites, all these teams have a good opportunity to lift the title.
This is Tamil Nadu’s best chance to end their Ranji Trophy drought as they have been completely professional since day 1. Playing at neutral venues too helped their cause in a big way as their pacers came into the reckoning and won matches for the South Indian giants on a regular basis. Thrashing Karnataka in the quarters will give them a lot of confidence going into the semis against Mumbai.
Mumbai will look to continue their dominance over TN in the semis and this match is expected to a cracker of a contest. Let us take a look at various factors going into this semi-finals.
Head to Head
The rivalry between Mumbai and Tami Nadu dates back to the pre-Independence era when both the teams played their first match against each other as Bombay and Madras respectively. Since then, Mumbai/Bombay have always had the upper hand against Tamil Nadu/Madras.
In the 14 matches between Bombay and Madras, Bombay province has come out victorious on 9 occasions while Madras has managed to win just a single match. Four matches have ended in a stalemate.
Mumbai continued their dominance over their South Indian rivals, Tamil Nadu as they have come out on top on 6 occasions out of the 12 matches both these teams faced each other in the past. Tamil Nadu have fared better than Madras as they have won 2 matches compared to Madras’ solo win over Bombay and have drawn 4 matches.
In total, the team from the West has won 15 out of the 26 matches between both the teams while their Southern rivals have been the better team only thrice. Eight matches failed to produce results. The last time both these teams played, Aditya Tare’s Mumbai came out on top in a low-scoring thriller at Lahli.
| Played | Mumbai/Bombay win | Madras/TN win | Draws |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 15 | 3 | 8 |
Road to the Semis
Both the teams started off their 2016-17 Ranji campaign facing each other on a green-top at Lahli. It was a low-scoring thriller and the defending champions came out on top with a two-wicket win.
Since then, both the teams called the shots in Group A. Mumbai finished at the top of Group A with 30 points and were unbeaten in the league stage. On the other hand, Abhinav Mukund’s men had an upturn in form after the loss against Mumbai. Since then, TN ran through their oppositions as they won two matches with a bonus point twice and drew five matches with the first innings lead in four of them.
In the quarter-finals, Mumbai held their nerve to beat Hyderabad by 30 runs while Tamil Nadu trashed Karnataka by 7 wickets inside the first two days.
Pitch and Weather report
The wicket at the Saurashtra Cricket Association stadium is expected to be a batsman-friendly one and is likely to assist the pacers in the first hour of the game. Once the ball becomes old, batsmen should not face any difficulties in taking charge. It is still unsure whether the wicket will assist the spinners later on in the game.
As far as the weather is concerned, the mouth-watering semi-final clash between the two giants is unlikely to be halted by rain as the sun will be out in full force on all five days. The temperature is likely to touch 30 degrees on day 3 while it will linger around 30 on rest of the days. The humidity will be around 32 on all the five days.
Date: Jan 1 to Jan 5
Time: 9:30 AM
Telecast: Star Sports 4 HD, Star Sports 4
Key performers
Both teams are in a phase of transition as they are missing some of their key players. The next generation of stars have taken charge along with their experienced teammates. Mumbai are riding on the performances of their veteran Abhishek Nayar, who has scored 404 runs and picked up 17 wickets and he is backed well by the likes of Shreyas Iyer (553 runs) and Suryakumar Yadav (502 runs). On the bowling front, young left-arm spinner Vijay Gohil leads the charts among the Mumbai bowlers with 24 wickets.
For Tamil Nadu, their pace trio have been superb throughout the season. K Vignesh is the pick of the TN bowlers with 37 wickets while Aswin Crist and T Natarajan have accounted for 34 and 23 wickets respectively.
With the bat, Kaushik Gandhi with 726 runs including a double century and 2 centuries is the leading run scorer followed by their experienced campaigners Abhinav Mukund (689 runs) and Dinesh Karthik (664 runs).
Team News
Both the teams will be without their International stars as TN’s R Ashwin and Murali Vijay are yet to recover from the injuries they sustained during the five-match Test series against England. Skipper Abhinav Mukund, who took the field to bat in the first innings against Karnataka in the quarter-finals due to fever, has completely recovered and is ready to lead his side in the semis.
TN will be expecting their out-of-form batsman Baba Aparajith to regain form and might be asked to open the innings and they may include off-spinner Malolan Rangarajan in the XI instead of opener L Suryaprakash.
On the other hand, Mumbai have a depleted squad as they are missing Rohit Sharma (thigh), Ajinkya Rahane (finger), Dhawan Kulkarni (knee) and Akhil Herwadkar (ankle) due to injuries. The MCA selectors have included teenage opener Prithvi Shaw and the right-hander is expected to make it to the playing XI in the all-important semis.
Possible playing XIs:
Mumbai: Prithvi Shaw, Praful Waghela, Shreyas Iyer, Aditya Tare (captain and WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Siddesh Lad, Abhishek Nayar, Shardul Thakur, Vijay Gohil, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Tushar Deshpande.
Tamil Nadu: Abhinav Mukund (captain), Baba Aparajith, Kaushik Gandhi, Baba Inderjith, Dinesh Karthick (WK), Vijay Shankar, Malolan Rangarajan, Aswin Crist, Aushik Srinivas, K Vignesh and T Natarajan
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