KOLKATA:
Karnataka will be keen to seek revenge when they face
Bengal
in the quarterfinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali (T20) tournament in New Delhi on Thursday. The former lost out on a direct quarterfinal berth after losing their last Elite B group game by seven wickets to the same opposition in Guwahati earlier this month.
But as luck would have it, Karnataka managed to make the last eight after beating Saurashtra in the pre-quarters and ran into the same opposition. Incidentally Karnataka were knocked out of the last
Ranji Trophy by Bengal only at the Eden Gardens.
The Bengal bowling unit had done the job well in the league stages and will again need to be disciplined against experienced campaigners like Manish Pandey and
Karun Nair
.
Both had faltered in the pre-quarters and would thus now look to fire on all cylinders. They will have to address their opening blues as Mayank Agarwal and Devdutt Padikkal failed to give the team a good start. With both the players on national duty now, the new combination of
Rohan Kadam and BR Sharath too did not click against Saurashtra.
Bengal skipper
Sudip Chatterjee
was optimistic of a good show. “Karnataka is a big team, but we are not taking any extra pressure and treating it as just another match,” he said on the eve of the clash. “Win against them in our last game obviously will boost the boys,” he added.
Bengal will be missing wicketkeeper-batsman
Wriddhiman Saha, who had joined the India Test team’s training camp in Mumbai. In his absence, Sreevats Goswami made a return and is likely to open with his skipper.
The team will also miss experienced duo of Abhimanyu Easwaran and
Ishan Porel, who have been picked for the India ‘A’ tour to South Africa. Chatterjee might now have to play the crucial role of holding on one end in absence of Easwaran.
Karnataka spinners J Suchith and leg-spinner
KC Cariappa will have to bowl in tandem to stop Bengal putting up a huge score.
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