Ranji Trophy 2017-18, Final Preview - Delhi v Vidarbha

Yet another edition of India’s biggest cricketing summit is on the verge of culmination. Delhi is in the final of the Ranji Trophy for the first time since a decade, whereas it’s the first time Vidarbha has come this far. Both the sides played tremendous cricket to come all the way to this stage and needless to say, both of them deserved it.

Gautam Gambhir and Kunal Chandela’s tons, helped by Navdeep Saini terrorizing spell, helped Delhi go past Bengal. On the other side, hot favorites Karnataka bowed down to Vidarbha by a heart-wrecking margin of 5 runs. It was a nail-biter of a game, but Rajneesh Gurbani’s outstanding spell of 12/162 sent the cricketing fraternity into a frenzy.

Vidarbha and Karnataka undoubtedly played the match of the season. But they have to ensure all the excitement from that game should be carried forward in a good way. The battles lines have been drawn at the very beautiful Holkar Stadium, Indore. Whilst the oldest cricketing tournament in the country managed to gift various iconic moments this year, people would be hoping for another cracker of a game.

Playing Combinations

Delhi

Gautam Gambhir and Kunal Chandela piled on the agony for Bengal in the Semifinals and they have some decent strikers in their side like Nitish Rana and Rishabh Pant. Himmat Singh and Dhruv Shorey will be hoping to finish the tournament on a high. Navdeep Saini and Kulwant Khejroliya will be the strike bowlers for Skipper Pant. It’ll be interesting to see how he uses Manan Sharma and Vikas Mishra in the playing XI.

Probable XI: Gautam Gambhir, Kunal Chandela, Dhruv Shorey, Nitish Rana, Himmat Singh, Rishabh Pant (c/wk), Vikas Mishra, Manan Sharma, Vikas Tokas, Navdeep Saini, Kulwant Khejroliya

Vidarbha

Skipper Faiz Fazal and the Ranji legend Wasim Jaffer will hold the key for Vidarbha. They have some outstanding talents like Apoorv Wankhede and Aditya Sarwate. Other players like Ganesh Satish, Akshay Wakhare have been performing well throughout the season. Rajneesh Gurbani will be one of the players to watch out for and accompanying him in the bowling department are Aditya Thackeray and Siddesh Neral.

Probable XI: Faiz Fazal (c), Sanjay Ramaswamy, Wasim Jaffer, Ganesh Satish, Apoorv Wankhade, Akshay Wadkar (wk), Aditya Sarwate, Akshay Wakhare, Rajneesh Gurbani, Aditya Thackeray, Siddesh Neral

Focus will be on

Rishabh Pant (Delhi)

What a huge moment for the 20-year-old! Rishabh Pant will be leading the Delhi lines for the first time in a final and needless to say he’d be excited for this challenge. The southpaw as always has been amongst the runs and has played a crucial role in bringing his side to the final. It’ll be one of the finest moments of his short little career if he can guide his side to their 8th title.

Rajneesh Gurbani (Vidarbha)

The fast bowler brought the Semifinal to life with a spell of a lifetime. Rajneesh Gurbani is on the verge of attaining great heights in his career and his spell was a testament to that fact. His skipper Faiz Fazal will be looking towards him on every occasion when the chips will be down and it’ll be interesting to see how much can he repay to his skipper’s trust.

StatAttack

2 – Faiz Fazal is the second highest run-scorer in the tournament this year. But he’s 313 short of Mayank Agarwal’s mind-boggling tally of 1,160 runs.

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