Strong batting line-up is Punjab's forte

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, MARCH 19. Punjab has come to the city to meet the once champion team and of course, last season's winner Mumbai, with its tail up. It played five Ranji Trophy league matches in the North Zone and one in the knock-out and was an outright winner in all the matches.

``It must be a record. In fact, we won all the one-day matches too,'' said captain Vikram Rathour after a wicketkeeping stint in the nets at the Wankhede Stadium on the first day of the week which was quite hot and humid, a clear hint of the energy sapping conditions the two teams are likely to face during the week.

For weeks Mumbai -- it had conceded first innings points to Maharashtra in the West Zone league -- has been preparing for the quarterfinals. Its coach, Ashok Mankad, has kept himself abreast of Punjab's excellent record and batting strength and was spontaneous in giving high marks to the team from Northern India, which in the 1990s carefully built its team and became a formidable rival.

``It's got a solid batting line-up,'' said Mankad as a matter of fact, but not showing the subtlety of concern. Mankad is a past master in manipulating things in his favour. The quarterfinal against Punjab will be a harsh test before he takes the Mumbai team to Perth for an invitation tournament. By the time his team concluded a light workout on Monday afternoon, he came to know that Dinesh Mongia (picked in the 14 man squad for the first three one-day internationals against Australia) will not be a source of bother for the Mumbai bowlers.

The left-handed batsman, Mongia, has scored 443 runs in six matches with a triple century and a half century. He ran into form in the Duleep Trophy, scoring two centuries. Mongia has to report in Chennai on March 21 or 22 for the Siyaram Cup. His absence will be a big blow to Punjab because he has been such a prolific scorer.

The good news, however, for Rathour and Punjab was that Sarandeep Singh will be arriving in the city on Monday evening. The off- spinner, who has played a Test match against Zimbabwe, will have a purposeful role to play for his State from Tuesday.

Rathour, who has spent about a good ten years with Punjab, has realised that his wicketkeeping will be an additional skill that may sooner or later appeal to the national selectors. ``I kept wicket in the Challenger series at the behest of the selectors. I began my career as a `keeper, so it was not a problem at all. It was in 1993 that I decided to quit wicketkeeping in order to concentrate on my batting. I have done very well as a batsman in the domestic championships. If wicketkeeping is going to help me get a recall, then why not I do it seriously again,'' said Rathour.

Rathour also said that the Punjab batsmen do not find it difficult anymore to adjust to the pitches in this part of the country. ``It was five years ago. But now we are travelling a lot more outside of Punjab to play matches. We don't play very many matches on such kind of turfs where there is bounce. There is always sideways movement in North, but not bounce,'' said Rathour who has scored a century against Mumbai and West Zone in each of his three previous matches - Ranji, Irani and Duleep -- at the Wankhede.

Mumbai's only match after the West Zone league was against Australia in the third week of February. So it's been a long time since the home team played a competitive match, though most of the players have been busy in the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) run tournaments. Jatin Paranjape is back in the ranks. He gave the league matches a go and returned to the team only because Sachin Tendulkar pulled out of the team for the match against Australia. Mumbai can only gain from his experience at No. 3.

The teams:

Mumbai (likely XI): Amol Muzumdar (capt.), Wasim Jaffer, Vinayak Mane, Jatin Paranjape, Vinod Kambli, Amit Dani, Amol Rane (wk), Paras Mhambrey, Santosh Saxena, Rajesh Pawar, Ramesh Powar. Reserves: Sriram Kannan, Robin Morris, Kunal More, Vishal Tawde.

Punjab (from): Vikram Rathour (capt.), Ravneet Ricky, Yuveraj Singh, Pankaj Dharmani, Manish Sharma, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Gagandeep Singh, Ankur Kakkar, Sandeep Sharma, Babloo Kumar, Sanjay Dhul, Harminder Jugnu, Vineet Sharma, Sandeep Sanwal, Sarandeep Singh.

Umpires: Messrs. I. Sivaram and G. A. Pratapkumar.

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