Ranji Trophy: Odisha face a tough task against Baroda

Odisha managed to draw their last Ranji Trophy Group A game against Jammu and Kashmir by the barest of margins as Sandeep Pattnaik played a heroic knock of unbeaten 55 off 222 balls in the fourth innings at Barabati Stadium early this week. In the end, chasing 269 for victory Odisha reached 112 for the loss of 8 wickets when the stumps were drawn as J&K missed a chance to bag an all-out win.
As a result, Odisha managed to grab three points from the game thanks to their two-run first-innings lead and will now hope to take this fighting spirit forward into their next tie against hosts Baroda in Vadodara starting Saturday.
Despite the Houdini act in the last game, it will be a challenging task for the Govinda Poddar-led side as the hosts will be coming into the game following successive victories against defending champions Mumbai and Services, respectively.
While they beat Mumbai by 84 runs, the Mitesh Patel-led side earned a 65-run win against Services in their last tie with Shivalik Sharma scoring 178 in the first innings. Player of the match Mahesh Pithiya was the other star performer as he returned figures of 3/67 and 6/102 respectively.
Moreover, Baroda had beaten Odisha the last time the two teams had faced off last season early this year. They had earned a comprehensive 147-run victory and it will be fresh in the memory of Odisha players, who finished second-last on the table with just 12 points from seven matches.
However, things are much different for Odisha this time around with a new coach on board. Surendra Bhave was brought in ahead of the start of the season and Poddar sounded more than pleased with his appointment during an earlier interaction with TOI. The team had sessions with famous mental conditioning coach Dr Swaroop Savanur ahead of the season and Narendra Hirwani also held spin-bowling sessions with the team.
All this will surely come in handy for Odisha when they take the field against Baroda.
After all they did play quite well against J&K after their opener against Tripura was washed out without a ball being bowled. Poddar scored a brilliant unbeaten century in the first innings while debutant Sumit Sharma grabbed a five-for in J&K’s first essay. The other bowlers also chipped in as Odisha were able to stop J&K just two runs away from their first innings score of 270.
Hopefully they will now be able to do it once more and grab some much-needed points against the table toppers, who will be coming into the game eyeing nothing but another win.