Srinagar, February 23: On this day in 2020, Karnataka ruined J&K’s hopes to create history in Ranji Trophy. The two teams were playing quarter-final at GGM Science College ground and J&K dominated in most of the first innings. But visitors soon turned things around and finally won the match comfortably by 167 runs.
After two years, J&K finally has a chance to avenge their loss as the two teams lock-horns at Chennai on Thursday in second round of Ranji Trophy. J&K, coming from a dominating win against Pondicherry, will surely be confident.
But if one looks at the Karnataka squad, which features Indian stars like Mayank Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Manish Pandey, K Gowtham, etc, it seems a tough job. J&K also has a solid squad but in order to topple a side like Karnataka, they will need to come up with a very strong performance.
J&K is currently at the top of Group ‘C’ with 6 points while Karnataka (3 points) is placed second. If J&K gives them a hard run by either getting first innings lead or an outright win, their chances of qualifying for knockouts will increase manifold.
Probable XI
J&K is unlikely to make any changes to its playing XI as they wouldn’t want to mess up the winning combination. However, the one change they can make is by bringing in Mujtaba Yousuf in place of Ram Dayal. The left-arm pacer troubled Karnataka batters the last time and he brings variety to the J&K bowling line-up
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J&K’s likely playing XI: Qamran Iqbal, Jatin Wadhwan, Shubham Pundir, Ian Dev Singh (C), Abdul Samad, Parvez Rasool, Fazil Rashid (WK, Abid Mushtaq, Auqib Nabi, Umran Malik, Mujtaba Yousuf/Ram Dayal.
Karnataka’s likely playing XI:
Devdutt Padikkal, Ravikumar Samarth, Karun Nair, Manish Pandey (c), Srinivas Sharath (wk), Krishnappa Gowtham, Krishnamurthy Siddharth, Vidyadhar Patil, Shreyas Gopal, Ronit More, Prasidh Krishna