CHENNAI: A depleted Tamil Nadu takes on Chhattisgarh in the third-round match of the Ranji Trophy scheduled to begin at Sri Ramakrishna College grounds, Coimbatore on Saturday.
The hosts will continue to be without the services of their captain Sai Kishore who is part of the Emerging Teams Asia Cup. Star all-rounder Washington Sundar is now part of the India team that is playing a Test series against New Zealand. Ace batters Sai Sudharsan and B Indrajith will also be unavailable as the duo is part of the India A team on its tour of Australia.
In their absence, the likes of Pradosh Ranjan Paul, Shahrukh Khan and Vijay Shankar have to step up and help the hosts post a challenging total.
"We are aware of the challenges ahead of us. A couple of players are not there as they are on national duty. Still, we have a good lineup and will go about the task in a professional way," Pradosh Ranjan Paul told TNIE.
"A couple of young players from the State Under-23 team have joined as replacements. We have still not decided the playing XI and we will take a call before the game," added Pradosh.
Tamil Nadu began the season on a winning note defeating Saurashtra by an innings at Coimbatore a fortnight ago and the N Jagadeesan-led side came close to beating Delhi in their previous round. The team boasts of a good record at Coimbatore and this should augur well.
For the hosts to fire, the middle order must perform putting in-form Pradosh under the spotlight.
"There is no undue pressure on me. I will just go about the job as I have been doing in the past. The mantra is to assess the conditions quickly and to play to the merit of the ball. My thought process is always to play as per the team requirement and it will continue," said a confident Pradosh.
In the absence of Sai Kishore and Washington, Ajith Ram, Pradosh and Shahrukh must take care of the spin duties with Gurjapneet Singh handling the new ball.
"We are aware of the job ahead in the absence of Washy and Sai Kishore. We have prepared well and are confident that we will deliver. We have been bowling well as a unit under the guidance of our coach L Balaji and will continue to do so," said Ajith Ram.
The Amandeep Khare-led Chhattisgarh are a good batting unit and should pose some questions to the TN bowling attack. In the previous game against Saurashtra, Khare cracked a double-century, while Sanjeet Desai managed to slam a ton. So it could be a contest between TN bowlers vs the visiting batters.
"As I said earlier we are aware of the visitors' strength. We have an able captain and the resources to counter them," signed off Ajith Ram.
Select matches: Group A: In Vadodara: Baroda vs Odisha; Group B: In Visakhapatnam: Andhra vs Himachal Pradesh; In Hyderabad: Hyderabad vs Puducherry; Group C: In Patna: Bihar vs Karnataka; In Kolkata: Bengal vs Kerala; Group D: In Delhi: Delhi vs Assam; In Coimbatore: Tamil Nadu vs Chhattisgarh.