Vidarbha face Baroda in Cooch Behar Trophy final

NAGPUR: Last year, Vidarbha were defending champions. They were playing for their second consecutive Cooch Behar Trophy title at VCA, Civil Lines. It was a matter of who handles the pressure better. Uttar Pradesh scored over Vidarbha and the hosts finished as runners-up.
The current Vidarbha Under-19 outfit will need to reflect on the last year's defeat when they face visiting Baroda in their third consecutive final from Wednesday.It will be a matter of who bogs down early in this four-day clash at the same venue.
Aman Mokhade-led side is firing on all fronts. Their clinical bowling performance and dominating batting against Mumbai in semifinal have given another boost to their already impressive campaign. Looking at the host's campaign, Baroda must have gauged how challenging their rivals are in their own den.
The visitors have many hurdles to overcome. The openers Avesh Shaikh (711 runs in 8 innings) and Mohd. Faiz (577 runs in 10 innings) are pillars of Vidarbha batting. The equally potent pair of pacers Praful Hinge (34 wickets) and Manan Dosi broke Mumbai's backbone in semifinal.
If that's not enough, the trio of allrounders - Mandar Mahale, Prerit Agrawal and Harsh Dubey - the architect of the last seven consecutive results including six outright victories, will make the ask more steep for Baroda.
Dubey, the India Under-19 all-rounder, has bagged 49 wickets, second highest in the tournament. He has also contributed with the bat scoring 402 runs. When Dubey and Mahale have bowled in tandem, all the teams have found it difficult to score. To make the matter worse, leggie Rohit Dattatraya adds an unique flavour to bowling attack.
Baroda will look up to their inform pair of middle-order batters wicketkeeper K Marathe (693 runs) and P Patidar (672) and Atharva Karulkar to tame the rival's inform bowling attack.
While Vidarbha have high hopes from their middle-order comprising Mokhade and the trio of allrounder, Baroda will want their duo of spinners Mahesh Pithiya (43 wickets) and Malhar Ghevaria (42 wickets) to dominate Vidarbha batsmen following the pair openers.
Though there will be a lot of pressure, Vidarbha coach Usman Ghani wants his wards to treat it as just another game. "We will not be any taking any kind of pressure of this game. We have fared well so far. We lifted our game in crunch situations. And, we will continue to extend our unbeaten streak to the eight match against Baroda," said Ghani.
"Since we are playing at our home ground, we are aware about the conditions. We will try our best to use it to our advantage. If we play as a team, we would definitely claim the second title in three years," Ghani added.