CHENNAI: Weather permitting a keen contest is on the cards when a confident Tamil Nadu take on an energetic and experienced Railways in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group A tie at the IIT-Chemplast grounds here on Wednesday.
Tamil Nadu come into the match with a solid batting display against Saurashtra where they gathered three points. Alth ough Railways lost their last game to Mumbai, they cannot be taken lightly as the margin of defeat was very narrow.
The message from the Railway camp is that “if we can challenge the mighty Mumbai then none dare to write us off”.
Although Tamil Nadu will be without the services of its star players M Vijay and R Ashwin. The return of L Balaji augurs well for the hosts who are keen to go for full points against Railways.
“We will miss Ashwin and Vijay, but Balaji’s return has boosted our confidence.
Weather permitting we would like to have a full game which I suppose would be interesting.
Our batting has held us in good stead in the last game, so I am sure they can do an encore,” said PC Prakash, TN’s batting coach. “We have four seamers in Balaji, Ganapathy, Yo Mahesh and Sunil Sam.
The two spinners are Prabhu and Aushik.
Whether to go for four seamers and one spinner or three mediumpacers and two spinners will be decided after having a look at the wicket,” added Prakash.
Railways have the likes Murali Karthik, Sanjay Bangar, Yere Goud, JP Yadav in their ranks who are all seasoned campaigners.