UP take on star-studded Rest of India in Irani Trophy, tie from Mon

Nagpur, Oct 8: An enthusiastic Uttar Pradesh (UP) are looking forward to their Irani Trophy tie against a star-studded Rest of India (RoI) at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) stadium here, from tomorrow.

Although without their stars Mohammed Kaif, Suresh Raina and speedster R P Singh, UP, the Ranji champions, are in an upbeat mood after their victory over Pakistan National champions Sialkot at Dharamshala (HP).

RoI appear strong on paper with several stars in the line-up.

However, the team has assembled only the day before the tie today, leaving little time to find the tuning.

A bouncy wicket in the lush VCA Stadium awaits the players, and the team winning the toss would most probably like to bat.

UP coach Rajinder Singh Hans appears assured in spite of the absence of three of his star players. Asserting that his players are on a high, Hans said that the pressure would be on RoI as several of their players would like to perform and serve notice. His boys are good and his team also has some veterans to fall back upon, the coach said.

RoI skipper Wasim Jaffer said they were looking forward to the tie and expected to do well.

He did not expect the fact that the team had assembled on the eve of the match to pose problems.

Although the match is being dubbed the first of the new domestic season, his boys have been playing and would come good, Jaffer said.

Jyoti Yadav is leading the UP side in the absence of skipper Mohammed Kaif. His team includes Ravikant Shukla, the captain of the under-19 side.

Two players 'Rohit Sharma of RoI and Piyush Chawla of UP' would make their first-class debut if included in the XI tomorrow.

However, leg-spinner Chawla has little chance of earning his cap as he sustained a rib injury during the tie in Dharamshala.

Incidentally, this is the first time that a domestic tie is being telecast live. Neo, the channel launched by Nimbus Television, will telecast the proceedings. The match is expected to be attended by four of the five members of the selection committee 'Chairman Dilip Vengsarkar (west zone), Sanjay Jagdale (central zone), Venkatapathy Raju (south zone) and Bhupinder Singh Senior (north zone).

Ranjib Biswal (east zone) is not attending.

The teams: UP - Jyoti Yadav (captain), Rizwan Shamshad, Gyanendra Pande, Ashish Zaidi, Ravikant Shukla (vice captain), Shivakant Shukla, Shalabh Shrivastava, Praveen Kumar, Rohit Prakash, Piyush Chawla, Mohammed Amir Khan, Tanmay Shrivastava, Ratnesh Mishra, Avinash Yadav and Anshul Kapur.

RoI - Wasim Jaffer (captain), Robin Uthappa, S Badrinath, Gautam Gambhir, Vanugopal Rao (vice captain), Dinesh Karthik, V R V Singh, L Balaji, Zaheer Khan, Murali Karthik, P Ojha, Rohit Sharma, S Lahiri and Y O Mahesh.

Umpires: Sudhir Asnani (Madhya Pradesh) and Shashank Ranade (Maharashtra); Third Umpire: Dandapani (Kerala); Match Referee: R S Rathore (Rajasthan).

UNI