Sport - Cricket

Baroda to miss Irfan

BANGALORE: Karnataka, after its emphatic victory over Andhra in the last match at Mysore, is all keyed up to take on an Irfan Pathan-less Baroda in its Ranji Trophy super league cricket match at the RSI grounds, here from Sunday.

Paras Mhambrey, the Baroda coach, was quick to point that Irfan, recalled into the Indian ODI side, will be missed but Baroda has been used to playing without him for sometime now.

But then with the talented Satyajit Parab and Rakesh Solanki, who is not amongst the runs of late, alongside captain Connor Williams, the visitor cannot be taken lightly.

With Sankalp Vohra, a left-arm medium-pacer and a hard-hitting batsman, coming in place of Irfan, Baroda looks a decent side at least on paper.

Karnataka’s second innings collapse in the earlier matches is something that the team management needs to address.

However, with Rahul Dravid there to prop up the middle order, a semblance of solidity can be attained.

All this weather permitting since the City experienced steady drizzle and occasional heavy showers for most of Saturday.

The teams (from):

Karnataka: Robin Uthappa (capt.), Rahul Dravid, K.B. Pawan, C. Raghu, B. Akhil, Ganesh Satish, V.S. Thilak Naidu, Manish Pandey, Sunil Joshi, R. Vinay Kumar, N.C. Aiyappa, Sunil Raju, S. Aravind, Deepak Chougule, K.P. Appanna, C.M. Gautam.