Tamil Nadu hold edge over Delhi

New Delhi:

A resurgent Delhi will have to play out of their skin to upset Tamil Nadu's applecart when the two teams cross swords in the second quarterfinal match of the Ranji Trophy on Thursday.

Topping Group A with 26 points, Tamil Nadu has been invincible so far and clearly starts as the hot favourites, even though the visitors would be without skipper Dinesh Karthik who is busy on national duty.

In contrast, Delhi's is far from a clean slate.

They had suffered an innings defeats to Uttar Pradesh and although the team coached by Vijay Dahiya did well to reach the quarterfinals, they have their task cut out tomorrow.

For Delhi, batting remains a concern, barring keeper-batsman Punit Bisht and veteran Mithun Manas, who have been in good form.

Delhi will miss the services of Virat Kohli, who is currently on national duty.

In the bowling department, Pradeep Sangwan, Parvinder Awana, and Sumit Narwal have shouldered the burden and shone with the new ball.

For Tamil Nadu, S Badrinath has done bulk of the scoring, piling up a double century and a century in his team's last two appearances, while Abhinav Mukund and C Ganapathy have also been among runs.

Ganapathy have also contributed with the ball, scalping 18 wickets in the tournament so far to emerge as the second best bowler for Tamil Nadu.

However, it will be R Aushik Srinivas, who will be the trump card for the visitors as was seen in his brilliant performance against Mumbai, against whom he took a seven-wicket haul.

The only concern for the visitors is the absense of skipper Dinesh Karthik who is currently busy on national duty.