NAGPUR: Vidarbha's thrilling last-ball victory on Tuesday against Uttarakhand, courtesy Yash Thakur's excellent bowling, propelled them to the second place behind Mumbai on the points table.
In order to continue to hold onto the position and go straight into the knockouts, Vidarbha will look to replicate Tuesday's result against Madhya Pradesh (MP) at Rajkot on Thursday.
Vidarbha are well-placed as top-2 teams from a group make it to the next round. However, things are not as simple as they look. There are a total three teams — Vidarbha, Uttarakhand and MP — with 12 points each.
All of them have two matches to play and none can afford to lose any of them. If any of these teams loses, the others will get the advantage and it would boil down to last-minute rush, which all would look to avoid.
As Vidarbha have better net run rate than the other two, they have an advantage. With the run rate playing a bigger role, Vidarbha batters need to up their game in the penultimate league match, while the bowlers seem to have already pulled up their socks to make it to the knockouts.
Since the return of India speedster Umesh Yadav, Vidarbha bowling unit has been posing questions to their rivals. Now, another pacer in Thakur has joined the party along with left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey. They both were the engineers of Uttarakhand victory. On top of it, they have seasoned Aditya Sarwate making the batters' life difficult with his patent cramping line on the middle-off.
