Opportunity for Bombay to wipe away last season's nightmare

Bombay this year puts forth a team made up of a combination of blandly solid veterans at the domestic level, leavened by the spice of a few contributing youngsters.

The batting has had at its head, for a lot of the season, the left-right combination of Amit Pagnis and Wasim Jaffer - a pair that has served Bombay with distinction at both the u-16 and u-19 levels before graduating to their current first-class status. For the semi-finals however, with Bombay having a surfeit of middle-order batsmen, it is likely that Pagnis will make way for wicketkeeper-batsman, sometime opener, and skipper Samir Dighe.

Following this opening pair of the grizzled veteran and the young tyro (who both coincidentally made their national debut this season) will be the middle-order. This has traditionally been the strength of the Bombay teams over the decades, and this time is no different - though it has shown a worrying brittleness over the past two years. The middle-order for the semifinal is likely to consist of former international southpaw Jatin Paranjpe at No 3. Paranjpe will be followed by a veritable Shardashram Brigade - Sachin Tendulkar at No 4 (of whom nothing needs to be said), followed by the trio of former Tendulkar school-mates (and Achrekar disciples) Vinod Kambli, Amol Muzumdar and Ajit Agarkar. On paper at least, it shapes up to be a formidable line-up.

The Bombay bowling this season has been particularly interesting to long-time watchers, for it has been led by two completely contrasting figures - the gangling 6 foot, 5 inch frame of veteran paceman Abey Kuruvilla, probably in the autumn of a highly distinguished Bombay career, and the diminutive orthodox left-arm spinner Rajesh Pawar who, at 21, has almost all of his career ahead of him. Neither man was due to start the season bowling for Bombay - Kuruvilla was dropped from the squad for the first two matches (reportedly against the wishes of captain and deputy) by selectors looking to blood youngsters, and Rajesh Pawar was the third spinner to Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj Bahutule.

Eventually Pawar played the first match against Maharashtra only due to an injury to Bahutule's spinning finger, claimed 11 wickets in the match, and established himself right away. Kuruvilla was brought back two matches into the season after the youth experiment paid no immediate dividends, and immediately produced his typical large-hearted performances for Bombay, the culmination of which came in a brilliant three hours against Karnataka where he came in at last man with Bombay's first innings lead at 127 and the match still alive. He proceeded to blast an unbeaten 37 with 4 fours and 2 sixes to push the lead up to 182, and immediately came back with the new ball to claim 5/32 and topple Karnataka by an innings - a remarkable single-handed effort.

Kuruvilla has played all six matches for Bombay since his comeback, and has claimed 28 wickets in the season at 17.28 runs apiece. The pint-sized Pawar might seem to concede close to two feet in height to his counterpart, but he concedes nothing in wicket-taking - he has actually exceeded Kuruvilla's tally by five to be Bombay's leading wicket-taker this season (33 wickets in 7 matches at 19.45). Former international Nilesh Kulkarni is the other major wicket-taker on the season with 23.

These three, along with Ajit Agarkar returning from national duty, will provide the bulk of skipper Dighe's bowling options in the semi-final. The fifth bowler choice may be pitch-driven, and might be veteran seamer Paras Mhambrey who led the attack at the start of the season, if he is considered fit enough to play after a debilitating injury in a freak accident early in the season. There must be some doubt in this matter as Mhambrey has not played a competitive match in over three months now. If Mhambrey is declared unfit, the choice will likely fall between seamer Santosh Saxena or rookie off-spinning all-rounder Ramesh Powar who has had an outstanding first two matches since his debut against Rajasthan.

Thus, a close to full-strength Bombay squad heads to Wankhede to take on the might of Tamil Nadu. For a group of players seeking redemption for the sins of 1999 (in the eyes of old Bombay hands) there can be no better opportunity to wipe away the nightmares of last season than this - a chance to take yet another step towards the pinnacle, by moving into the final of the Ranji Trophy.