Tripura will face formidable Baroda from Wednesday in a crucial Ranji Trophy cricket match. The four-day match will be held at the MBB Stadium. Both teams are now concerned about a single thing—the weather god. On Tuesday afternoon, the sky was covered with dark clouds. If it rains at night, it will be a problem. This is the only worry of the cricketers from both teams.
Both teams finalized their preparations on Tuesday morning. In terms of strength, the visiting team is expected to have a slight edge over Tripura. However, Tripura’s cricketers are refusing to be intimidated by this. The State team has always been strong on home ground. By stopping Mumbai in the last match, Tripura’s cricketers proved their worth.
Manishankar Murasing and others want to give their best in the Baroda match. If they can earn points from that match, Tripura will be in a much better position.
Meanwhile, Krunal Pandya and his team are also ready to throw a tough challenge to the hosts. They have also prepared themselves accordingly. Both teams practiced for almost three hours on Tuesday morning.
Tripura’s team management has initially decided to field first if they win the toss against Baroda. However, the final playing XI has not yet been finalized. A final decision will be made after inspecting the wicket on Wednesday morning.
According to the sources, there may be one change in the Tripura team’s playing XI. Bikram Debnath may replace Sandeep Sarkar in the starting eleven. If Bikram joins, the team’s batting depth will increase as well as the bowling depth.
Therefore, everyone is preferring Bikram. But due to some unknown reason, Sandeep was included in the team. There are allegations that a state cricket association official is behind this. Tripura captain Mandeep Singh clearly said they are determined to play well against Baroda.
He asserted, everyone is excited to go out on the field and give their best. However, the Tripura captain admitted that the batsmen would have a greater responsibility to take.
Notably, Baroda is at the top of the table with 18 points after playing 3 matches this season. Tripura is in the third position with 9 points after playing the same number of matches.
(Tripura, Northeast)
