Much at stake in Ranji 'War of Roses'

MUMBAI, November 30: Mumbai skipper Amol Muzumdar’s middle name is Anil. With due respects to his father, it should be balance.
Everything he does in life, be it playing cricket or offering his views on it to the media, is wonderfully balanced. Never has he faltered. Not even when he was consistently ignored for the national side despite scoring runs by the tons in domestic cricket.
This season though, that very balance has deserted him.And the result can be seen in the mediocre scores he has posted. 8, 4, 23, 4 not out, 43, 2 not out, 8 and 7 are slim returns for Mumbai’s most successful run machine. The worrying factor is the nature of his dismissals. Four out of the six have been lbws.
"I was falling over while playing the ball. The balance was all array and hence I was unable to post big scores," an intense Muzumdar admitted after practice on the eve of Mumbai’s four-day Super League clash against Group A leaders Maharashtra. Muzumdar had an able coach in Pravin Amre to sort out the problem. "He gave me a narrower blade to bat with and asked me to focus on middling the ball," Muzumdar informed. The idea behind the drill, according to Amre was, "If he can middle the ball using a narrow blade, he can do so with the match blade too, which is broader anyway."
Amre was also seen trying to correct Muzumdar’s head and elbow positions and make his footwork more sprightly. Muzumdar’s will be a key wicket on a track which is expected to be bouncier than the other wickets at Wankhede. "Yes, it will have good carry and hence we are going into the game with four quicks," revealed Amre. It means a debut for Indian Oil and Shivaji Park Youngsters pacer Murtuza Hussain, who will replace leg-spinner Bhavesh Patel.
Amre’s counterpart Chandrakant Pandit showed customary reluctance to disclose his combination for the match. But he looked pleased with the pitch.