Ranji Trophy : Group B preview

Ahead of the Ranji Trophy season that starts across the country on Friday, we take a look at the three groups as per the revamped domestic format. This season, 27 Ranji Trophy teams have been divided into three groups of nine each.

Here is a preview of Group B, which comprises Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha, Delhi, Baroda and Odisha.

Two key encounters will set off Group B from November 2. Karnataka will visit Baroda, while Uttar Pradesh will host Delhi. Haryana vs Vidarbha and Odisha vs Tamil Nadu are the other two matches starting the same day. The presence of finalists of the past four seasons makes this group very competitive. Tamil Nadu lost to Rajasthan in the 2011-12 final and Baroda were on the receiving end from Rajasthan in the season before that. Mumbai defeated Karnataka in 2009-10, while UP finished second to Mumbai in 2008-09.

Group B comprises Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha, Delhi, Baroda and Odisha.

Delhi have won the prestigious trophy seven times, while Karnataka were winners on six occasions. Baroda have clinched the Ranji Trophy five times, Tamil Nadu twice and Haryana and UP once each.

Prediction: Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to progress to the quarter-finals.

Key encounters:

Nov 2-5:

Baroda v Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh v Delhi

Nov 9-12:

Tamil Nadu v Karnataka

Nov 17-20:

Delhi v Baroda, Uttar Pradesh v Karnataka

Nov 24-27:

Delhi v Tamil Nadu, Haryana v Baroda

Dec 1-4:

Haryana v Delhi, Uttar Pradesh v Baroda

Dec 8-11:

Karnataka v Delhi

Dec 15-18

Baroda v Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh v Haryana

Dec 22-25

Karnataka v Haryana, Tamil Nadu v Uttar Pradesh

Dec 29 to Jan 1

Tamil Nadu v Haryana

Squads:

Tamil Nadu: L Balaji (captain), Jagannathan Kaushik, Baba Aparajith, Baba Aparajith, Arun Karthik, Murugan Ashwin, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravichandran Ashwin, Aushik Srinivas, Subramaniam Badrinath, Subramaniam Badrinath, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Yo Mahesh, M Mohammad, Abhinav Mukund, Ramaswamy Prasanna, Ravi Kumar Rohith, Kuthethurshri Vasudevadas, Murali Vijay

Karnataka: Vinay Kumar (captain), Amit Verma, KP Appanna, Stuart Binny, Ganesh Satish, Muralidharen Gautam (wk), Kunal Kapoor, Abhimanyu Mithun, Syed Khaja Moinuddin, Ronit More, Manish Pandey, KB Pawan, Lokesh Rahul, Sunil Raju, Robin Uthappa

Uttar Pradesh: Suresh Raina, Eklavya Dwivedi, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Arish Alam, Amir Khan (wk), Amit Singh, Piyush Chawla, Mukul Dagar, Mohammad Kaif, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Ali Murtaza, Parvinder Singh, Tanmay Srivastava, Sudeep Tyagi

Vidarbha: Sairaj Bahutule (captain), Ranjit Paradkar, Hemang Badani, Aniruddha Chore (wk), Shiv Sunder Das, Faiz Fazal, Amol Jungade, Urvesh Patel, Sumit Ruikar, Shalabh Shrivastava, Sandeep Singh, Gaurav Upadhyaya, Shrikant Wagh, Apoorv Wankhada, Umesh Yadav

Delhi: Virender Sehwag (captain), Parvinder Awana, Puneet Bisht (wk), Unmukt Chand, Manoj Chauhan, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Manan Sharma, Mithun Manhas, Milind Kumar, Yogesh Nagar, Sumit Narwal, Ashish Nehra, Pradeep Sangwan, Ishant Sharma, Vikas Mishra

Odisha: Natraj Behera (captain), Alok Mangaraj, Basant Mohanty, Deepak Behera, Anil Buda, Halhadar Das, Dhiraj Singh, Abhilash Mallick, Rakesh Mohanty, Sandeep Mulia, Paresh Patel, Govind Podder, Subhrajit Sahoo, Biplab Samantray, Alok Chandra Sahoo

Baroda: Yusuf Pathan (captain), Ambati Rayudu, Utkarsh Patel, Firdaush Bhaja, Bharghav Bhatt, Abhimanyu Chauhan, Kedar Devdhar, Gagandeep Singh, Sagar Mangalorkar, Ketan Panchal, Irfan Pathan, Pinal Shah (wk), Rakesh Solanki, Sankalp Vohra, Aditya Waghmore

Haryana: To be announced

Maharashtra: To be announced

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