NAGPUR: An Instagram video of Faiz Fazal making hay against Uttar Pradesh in the last match was aptly captioned by the skipper. "The best is yet to be," it read. Vidarbha know despite all the hard work, they would have been happier had they recorded a win over UP. An outright win would be on their mind when they meet Maharashtra in the next Ranji Trophy match starting on Thursday.
Vidarbha think-tank is all geared-up for the formidable Maharashtra challenge. Faiz's men are firing on all cylinders. There is no department that lacked in the first match. However, the only thing that hampered Vidarbha's chances of the outright win against UP was the nature of pitch on Day-4 at Sultanpur, Gurgaon.
Once again, the Sultanpur pitch could pose a challenge. The wicket remains hard initially but slows down as the match progress, making batsmen's job easy. Vidarbha were close to the win in the last match. Despite having one of the best spin attacks in the country and presence of Umesh Yadav, the last one-and-half session went wicket-less as the pitch had lost the sheen.
It is learnt that the venue has hosted more than 30 matches this season and the curators hardly got enough time to prepare the pitches.
Maharashtra would be happy to play on such a surface as they are coming into the match with an outright win plus a bonus point. They just need three points if not an outright win to make their case stronger for the knockouts. Vidarbha need at least three points from first innings lead in this match to avoid last-minute rush to play the next stage.
Faiz has got a remarkable start to the season with 192 and his batsmen have joined the party with good knocks. Barring Athrava Taide, all other batsmen lived up to the expectations. While Wadkar hit century, R Sanjay and Apoorva Wankhade scored fifties.
Vidarbha bowlers would need to pull-up their sleeves to negate Maharashtra's strong batting line-up comprising a double centurion - Pavan Shah - from the last match against Assam.
The only way, for Vidarbha, to stay on top of the table is to skittle Maharashtra twice in the next four days, no matter how the 22-yard strip is rolled out.
