It has been a season of disappointments for Kerala. Not much has gone right for the team, which is more or less assured of staying in Group ‘C’ of the Ranji Trophy for another season.
Sachin Baby’s men have just 13 points from six games and are still looking for their maiden victory. They are hoping that it would come in the match against Services, starting at the Thalassery Cricket Stadium here on Thursday.
Services is in an even sorrier plight, with just eight points, also from six games. That is quite some way off Assam (28), Himachal (24) and Andhra (22), the top three in the group for the lowest-ranked teams in Ranji.
Services captain Rajat Paliwal sounded confident on the eve of the match, though. “We have a pretty balanced bowling attack of seamers and spinners and we would be going all out for a win,” said the skipper, who has also been the team’s leading run-getter with 382 runs.
“With Hardik Sethi scoring a hundred on debut in our last match against Goa and Anshul Gupta also making a century, our batting is in good shape too.”
He said he was expecting a stiff fight from Kerala. “It is a good side,” he said. “They have fine batsmen like Sanju and Sachin.”
Those two men, as well as the rest of the batting line-up, would have liked to have been more consistent though. “It is also frustrating to note that we took first-innings lead in five of our six matches but could not capitalise even once,” said Kerala coach Sairaj Bahutule.
He is hoping for a change of fortunes in this match. “It seems the wicket would give some assistance to the spinners,” he said. “We have quite a few options in our spin department. And Amit Verma had also bowled very well in our last match against Tripura, as he took five wickets in the second innings with his leg-spin.”
The teams (from): Kerala: Sachin Baby (capt.), K.B. Pawan, Abhishek Hegde, Amit Verma, Sanju V. Samson, Rohan Prem, Raiphi Vincent Gomez, Robert Fernandez, Nikhilesh Surendran (wicketkeeper), S. Monish, Vinoop Manoharan, Akshay Chandran, M.D. Nitheesh, N. Niyas and P.U. Anthaf. Coach: Sairaj Bahutule.
Services: Rajat Paliwal (capt.), Yashpal Singh, Sumit Singh, Soumik Chatterjee, Hardik Sethi, Deepak Punia, Nakul Sharma, Suraj Yadav, Mohit Mann, Raushan Raj, Vishnu Tiwari, Nakul Verma (wicketkeeper), Saurabh Kumar, Anshul Gupta and Abhishek Sakuja. Coach: Sanjeev Mehrotra.
