Karnataka’s recent return to the Ranji Trophy does not befit a team with a rich and storied history. Karnataka, eight-time champions and six-time runners-up, have not reached the semi-finals since winning the 2014/15 season.
It is this anomaly that the team led by Mayank Agarwal intends to use to rectify this campaign, and the first test of this pursuit will take place on Tuesday, when he will face Uttarakhand in the quarter-finals starting at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. will be split.
“Honestly, looking at us this season, we’re playing a different kind of cricket,” Mayank said on the eve of the match. “We don’t focus too much on what happened in the past, we don’t think too much about it. If we just keep playing like we used to, we’re going to do really well.”
Mayank kept his promise and this season he scored 603 runs from ten innings and was the team’s top scorer. Hitting him R. Samarth, Manish his Pandey, Nikin his Jose provided a skilful backup for the skipper and Devdut his Paddikal scored his 114 against Jharkhand in the previous game with his arms. Another shot of
Bowling achievements of K. Gowtham, V. Koushik, V. Vyshak and Vidwath Kaverappa plus a comprehensive performance from Shreyas Gopal covered Karnataka all bases. In fact, Karnataka’s 35 points in the group stage was the most by any team.
But Baroda, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand are no hard sell, as he proved when he edged out the likes of Pradesh to advance to Elite Group A (29 points). With Captains Jiwanjot Singh and Aditya Tare, Uttarakhand has two combat-experienced players who can be effective leaders.
Uttarakhand are newcomers to India’s premier elite competition that just debuted in 2018-19 and are now back-to-back quarter-finalists. In their first game against Karnataka, they hope to make a splash again.
The squads:
Karnataka: Mayank agarwal(Capt.), R. Samarth, Devdutt Padikkal, Nikin Jose, Manish Pandey, K.V. Siddharth, B.R. Sharath, Sharath Srinivas, K. Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Shubhang Hegde, Vidwath Kaverappa, V. Koushik, V. Vyshak, M. Venkatesh.
Uttarakhand: Jiwanjot Singh (Capt.), Aryan Sharma, Avneesh Sudha, Himanshu Bisht, Kunal Chandela, Deepak Dhapola, Priyanshu Khanduri, Akash Madhwal, Mayank Mishra, Dikshanshu Negi, Abhay Negi, Rajan Kumar, Akhil Rawat, Swapnil Singh, Aditya Tare, Agrim Tiwari.