Tamil Nadu better placed in south Indian derby

The days of 20,000 spectators coming to watch the prime rivalry in south India are gone, with both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu depleted in terms of talent, but once the teams are on the field there is still some needle. There might not be many to watch their Group B Super League match, starting tomorrow at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, but the few who come would want to see some of the same intensity.

Tamil Nadu had a better first match of the two, with their openers putting up 462 runs against Maharashtra. M Vijay, the double-centurion, went on to open for India, while Abhinav Mukund, the 18-year-old left-hand batsman, scored an unbeaten 300. Tamil Nadu, though, failed to take 20 wickets after that, something that doesn't bother them much. "It was a very flat wicket," WV Raman, their coach, said. He was pleased with L Balaji's comeback to first-class cricket - he had missed the last season because of a back injury, and bowled 32.2 overs for two wickets on an unhelpful Nasik pitch.

Vijay is likely to be replaced by Arun Karthik, who will be making his first-class debut. The other change to their team could be the inclusion of S Badrinath, who has been dropped from India's ODI squad, if he can make it to Bangalore in time for the match. Dinesh Karthik, however, will continue to lead the side.

Badrinath was not the only uncertainty for the Tamil Nadu team, though. They reached Bangalore under the impression the match would be played at the Rajinder Singh Institute Ground, but until the morning before the match they were not sure if the game had been shifted to the Chinnaswamy.

Karnataka, though, have more issues to address. In their first match, a home game against the recently-promoted Railways, they wasted a good start, going from 191 for 1 to 286 for 7, and then getting bowled out for 365. Their bowlers had Railways down at 110 for 4, but that was when the experience of Yere Goud, Sanjay Bangar and Raja Ali prevailed to get Railways a first-innings lead. Experience is what Karnataka lack, Vijay Bharadwaj, their coach, reckons. "First innings are very important in Ranji Trophy, and we need to do better in our first innings," he said. To rub it in, Karnataka folded for 127 in the second innings, an effort that didn't cost them an outright result but would have dented their confidence further.

There were positives in that match - Robin Uthappa, the captain, scored a century on the first day, and debutant Manish Pandey scored 64 from No. 7. "But I would want others in the middle order to score runs too," Bharadwaj said. "There is a temptation to push Pandey up the order, and also to play an extra bowler." Karnataka had gone with seven batsmen in the first game.

The pitch at the Chinnaswamy could have enough help for the bowlers to produce an outright result, something Bharadwaj is aware of. "Three points will be a satisfactory result, but this is a result-orientated pitch," he said. "And our first target is to beat Tamil Nadu."

If both the teams come with the same attitude, given a good pitch, we have an interesting match on our hands.

Teams (from) Karnataka:: Robin Uthappa (capt), KB Pawan, C Raghu, Bharat Chipli, Ganesh Satish, Thilak Naidu (wk), Manish Pandey, Sunil Joshi, R Vinay Kumar, NC Aiyappa, Sunil Raju, Sreesanth Arvind, M Gautam, Deepak Chougule, NV Prasad.

Tamil Nadu:: Dinesh Karthik (capt/wk), Abhinav Mukund, Arun Karthik, R Srinivasan, R Prasanna, S Vidyut, Suresh Kumar, R Ashwin, C Suresh, L Balaji, Yo Mahesh, P Amarnath, Ganapathy, KH Gopinath, S Badrinath.