Tamil Nadu eye turnaround

Following recommendations from the BCCI’s technical committee, which is headed by former India captain Sourav Ganguly, Ranji Trophy will be held at neutral venues. With an aim to get accustomed to the away conditions, the team has been training at the Abhimanyu Cricket Academy in Dehradun under coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar. The decision had earlier drawn a thumbs up from Tamil Nadu Ranji cricketers. Tamil Nadu’s bowling mentor L. Balaji said the new initiative could bring interesting results. “It is good that something new is being tried in the domestic circuit. We have to wait for a year to see the results it can bring but I feel the decision is for the betterment of Indian cricket as the players would be exposed to different conditions,” the paceman had told DTNext earlier. 

Tamil Nadu chief selector S Sharath said the alien conditions are for both the teams in the fray. “It is the same for both the teams. Tamil Nadu has done well over the past in playing away from home. We reached the final two seasons ago and we did well in the knock-outs (played away) to reach the final. The conditions remain the same for both the teams. Whoever does well, it’s good for their team and Indian cricket in general,” the selector said. The state team for the first two matches, against Mumbai and Railways, was selected on Friday. Seasoned campaigner Abhinav Mukund will lead the 16-member squad while Baba Aparajith will be his deputy. The team has four players (L. Suryapprakash, M.S. Washington Sundar, N. Jagadeesan and K. Vignesh) ready to make their first-class debut. 

GROUP A: Mumbai, Baroda, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Railways, Uttar Pradesh 

GROUP B: Saurashtra, Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Assam, Jharkhand 

GROUP C: Hyderabad, Haryana, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Services, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra, Chhattisgarh

SQUAD: Abhinav Mukund (captain), B. Aparajith (vice-captain), B. Indrajith, M. S. Washington Sundar, N. Jagadeesan, K. Dinesh Karthik, J. Kousik, L. Suryaprakash, Rahil S Shah, Malolan Rangarajan, R. Aushik Srinivas, A. Aswin Crist, M. Mohammed, K. Vignesh, T. Natarajan and M. Kaushik Gandhi. 

Coach: Hrishikesh Kanitkar. Bowling coach: L. Balaji. Fielding coach: A. Avinash

October 6 vs Mumbai, Lahli 

October 13 vs Railways, Bilaspur 

October 20 vs Uttar Pradesh, Dharamsala 

October 27 vs Madhya Pradesh, Cuttack 

November 5 vs Baroda, Raipur 

November 13 vs Bengal, Rajkot 

November 21 vs Punjab, Nagpur 

December 7 vs Gujarat, Belgaum