An inexperienced Tamil Nadu, low on confidence and weakened by the absence of key players, seeks to salvage its Ranji Trophy campaign when it takes on Madhya Pradesh at the Holkar Stadium here from Wednesday.
Coming into its third match, TN is battered and bruised after defeats to Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, in Dindigul.
Making matters worse
And, to make matters worse, it was dealt bigger blows when key members of the squad R. Ashwin and Abhinav Mukund had to miss out on this game due to international commitments and personal reasons respectively.
The batting unit in the first two matches looked out of sorts and depth for the rigours of First Class cricket with Dinesh Karthik, who is not part of this match, being the only batsman to go past 50.
Except for skipper B. Aparajith, the batting unit is grossly inexperienced and a lot will depend on the returning M. Kaushik Gandhi and the out-of-form N. Jagadeesan.
Between L. Suryapprakash, V. Ganga Sridhar Raju and K. Mukunth — two of whom might have to open — there is just six First Class matches experience.
While the TN bowlers did well to take 20 wickets in both its matches, Ashwin did the heavy lifting accounting for nearly half of it with 17. This time around, K. Vignesh, T. Natarajan and J. Kousik will have to be sharp and aggressive.
Coach D. Vasu said: “It’s a crucial game for us and we are missing six of our key players.
“It’s going to be tough, but it is up to the youngsters to step up. With only five of 18 teams qualifying from the group, we need to to go for outright wins.”
MP not too worried
Madhya Pradesh also comes into the game on the back of a defeat, to Baroda. However, the team has just played one match and wouldn’t be too worried.
MP fought back strongly after conceding a 97-run lead and made Baroda sweat it out to chase a target of 174.
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