New challenges for Prasad and Co
LUCKNOW: For the last eight years, Uttar Pradesh have been fighting to regain supremacy in the domestic cricket but to no avail and their maiden Ranji Trophy win in 2005-06 season still remains the best so far.
Since then, several changes were made in team’s set up and the bosses tried to bring in professionalism too by bringing former Indian bowler and Team India’s bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad as chief coach of the side.
Things didn’t even change then as just once the side could come close to a title win when they lost to Baroda by three runs and also the coveted Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 Trophy in final at Mumbai only last season.
Will the new domestic season starting Friday, help the side attain new heights when Piyush Chawla-led Uttar Pradesh begin their campaign in the Central Zone Vijay Hazare Trophy (50over) with a match against last year’s national runners-up Railways at Nagpur?
Success at the Duleep Trophy final early this week when Chawla led the Central Zone to nine-run win against South Zone would help the pint-sized leggie from Moradabad to lift the moral of the side, which has youngsters as well as some ‘out of form’ veterans and ‘injury prone’ bowlers too.
But for Prasad, who has been in his third season of the contract, motivating them to be ‘one unit’ seems to be a difficult task as the ‘clash of egos’ among the seniors is likely to be there.
With 10 points in as many as four matches last season, Uttar Pradesh had failed to make the knockout as hosts Vidarbha and Railways had first and second place finish from the zone.
Having Duleep Trophy’s final centurion Mahesh Rawat in the fold is a big plus for the Railways as there are number of youngsters in the side and they seem raring to go for a good start of the season under the watchful eyes of new coach and former India bowler Harvinder Singh. Presence of young spinner Karn Sharma, who had four wickets against Sri Lanka in a practice game recently, is likely to make a big difference to the side.
Hosts Vidarbha have roped in Team India batsman S Badrinath from Tamil Nadu and experienced batsman Ganesh Satish from Karnataka to bolster their batting, whereas they have the patronage of country;’s top most domestic coach Paras Mahambrey from this season on wards.
Madhya Pradesh being a solid unit in the zone would be there to post challenge to others, whereas Team India bowler Pankaj Singh-led Rajasthan too would try their best to come up in the points ladder this time. The UP-Railways match will be played at the Jamtha stadium, whereas in the second match of the day, hosts Vidarbha would be playing against Rajasthan at the VCA stadium in Civil Lines.