Ranji Trophy 2016-17: Injuries afflicted Mumbai to take on Hyderabad in quarters

Mumbai, the group A toppers will be playing their Ranji Trophy 2016-17 quarter-final game at Raipur in the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium against Hyderabad, who also finished the league stage as table toppers of the group C with 4 outright wins in the 9 games. Mumbai are on the quest of defending their Ranji Trophy title and to bag it for the 42nd time while Hyderabad, who are in knockouts for the first time since 2011-12 would like to make most of this chance.

The teams have many things in commonly between them. The batting of the both sides has been pretty average but everyone chipped in with contributions. No batsman from either sides is in the top 30 run scorers in his tourney so far which explains the fact that Mumbai and Hyderabad have a good depth in their pace attack and given the way the Raipur pitch has performed in the two games this season, it could help the pacemen of both the teams and make it an evenly contested match.

However, injuries to Mumbai players broke down their settled XI. Their squad for this game contains a lot of rookies which could be an advantage for Hyderabad, who have been playing with almost the same combination throughout the season under their new captain Subramaniam Badrinath.

Players to watch out for:

Shreyas Iyer had just scored 195 runs in the first 8 innings he played this season with just one fifty. Just before the knockouts, he gained his form with scores of 194 and 123 in the last 4 innings he has played.

Chama Milind, the Hyderabad’s left-arm seamer has had a great all-round season. Milind has his maiden century and picked maiden 5-wicket haul in first-class cricket this season. He has 281 runs at 40.14 scoring a century and fifty while his bowling returns have been great as he averages 23.96 with 28 wickets in his bag.

Playing XI:

Mumbai selector Milind Rege has quoted that Kevin and Praful would be opening in the quarters who have played just 1 and 4 FC games respectively. Mumbai could bring one of their senior players Siddhesh Lad and Abhishek Nayar in for Sufiyan and continue their 4-1 bowling attack.

Mumbai XI (Probable): Aditya Tare (C) (W), Kevin Almeida, Praful Waghela, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Sufiyan Shaikh / Siddhesh Lad / Abhishek Nayar, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Royston Dias, Vijay Gohil, Balwinder Singh Sandhu (Jr).

Hyderabad have maintained a settled XI once their winning streak began except for a game where Anirudh and Sumanth were injured before the game. Hyderabad replaced Mehdi Hassan with Himalay Agarwal for the last game on a pace friendly track to improve the batting strength. Bringing back Mehdi could be the only change for Hyderabad coming into the game unless for the last minute fitness woes.

Hyderabad XI (Probable): S Badrinath (C), Tanmay Agarwal, Akshath Reddy, B Anirudh, BP Sandeep, Kolla Sumanth, Himalay Agarwal / Mehdi Hassan, Chama Milind, Akash Bhandari, M Ravi Kiran, Mohammed Siraj

Head to Head in Ranji Trophy:

Mumbai and Hyderabad faced each other 15 times in Ranji Trophy Mumbai are clear leaders with 10 wins. While in knockouts, they have a 100% record in the 9 knockout games against Hyderabad as they have won 7 and went ahead based on first innings lead twice.

This game will be the first meeting between the both teams in Ranji Trophy at a neutral venue as the previous 15 were hosted by either Mumbai or Hyderabad.

Last encounter:

The last instance of both these teams meeting in Ranji Trophy was in November, 2012. Then Mumbai captain, Rohit Sharma elected to bat and scored 112 along with Hiken Shah who struck 156. The both had a 213-run stand for 3rd wicket before Mumbai went down from 335/2 to 443 all out.

Home side Hyderabad made most out of the dead track as they scored 699 runs and took 3 points from the game. Akshath Reddy and Hanuma Vihari put on a 384-run stand before missing out on double tons scoring 196 and 191 respectively. B Sandeep (117) too scored a century for his side.

Mumbai finished as champions in that season while Hyderabad got relegated by finishing at the bottom of Group A.