WITH nothing to lose, the ever-improving Vidarbha team will love to go one step further and book the final spot when they take on formidable Karnataka in the semi-final of Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Tournament at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Saturday.

Vidarbha are on a high with seven consecutive wins in the tournament and are now a team to beat. The wins over Maharashtra and Rajasthan in the knock-outs have only swelled their confidence and the Akshay Wadkar-led side will step onto the field on Saturday afternoon with an aim to deliver another match winning performance.

Vidarbha batters are having an excellent tournament and openers Atharva Taide and Ganesh Satish will definitely hope to give the two-time Ranji champions a rollicking start. Captain Wadkar too is full of confidence and has also scored runs whenever the team needed. Middle-order bat Jitesh Sharma has been the find of this competition and will be on the selectors’ radar for IPL for his mighty hitting and match winning knocks. Vidarbha has a long tail and hard-hitting batter Apoorv Wankhade is yet to be tested. He would be eager to show his might whenever he gets the chance. Similarly, Akshay Karnewar too is capable to handle the lower middle order apart from pacer Lalit Yadav who can hit big.

In the bowling department, Yadav, Darshan Nalkande and young and promising seamer Yash Thakur would be eager to pounce upon Karnataka batters including India player Manish Pandey. The spin department is being handled well by world record holder Karnewar, experienced Akshay Wakhare and Taide.

It would be interesting to see how Vidarbha utilise the spinners in those important 8 to 12 overs.

Karnataka, too, are high on confidence after their stunning ‘Eliminator’ win over Bengal a couple of days back.

Openers Rohan Kadam and BR Sharath would hope to dominate Vidarbha pacers early on as a good start would give Pandey licence to play his shots freely. Karun Nair and Abhinav Manohar will be manning the middle order. Their bowling department too looks good with pacers Vijaykumar Vyshak, MB Darshan and Vidyadhar Patil hoping to make early inroads.

Spinner KC Cariappa and Jagadeesha Suchith are the two spinners in Karnataka line-up.