VIDARBHA men have not been up to the mark in shortest format and their poor performances at the national level in the past year(s) have relegated them to Plate Group of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Twenty20 cricket tournament that gets under way on Thursday. They are in the company of ‘Seven Sisters’ — Arunachal Pradesh, Cricket Association of Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and will begin their campaign against Arunachal Pradesh at Vijayawada. In all the other five Elite groups there are six teams and each will play five matches. To make it level playing field, BCCI has devised a plan that all Plate members also get to play just five matches each though the pool has eight teams. Thus, Vidarbha will also play against five opponents. After their opening encounter, Vidarbha will play Nagaland (Nov 5), Meghalaya (Nov 6), Manipur (Nov 8) and Sikkim (Nov 9).

 

After a long lay-off from action on the field due to lockdown and later by an extended spell of monsoon in the region, Vidarbha players looked under-prepared. All the lined up tournaments were washed out but Vidarbha Cricket Association came out with a new Twenty20 tournament that served as a selection trials and gave much needed match practise to the pool of about 100 players. Vidarbha’s Ranji Trophy and Irani Cup winning captain Faiz Fazal had announced his retirement from the shortest format last season and senior pro Ganesh Satish was made leader of the pack. But this time, instead of looking back, Vidarbha selectors wanted to look ahead and they picked a young better much matured player stumper Akshay Wadkar to lead the side. Incidentally, his deputy Siddhesh Wath also belongs to the same tribe — wicketkeeper. The side has a good mix of experienced players like Ganesh, offie Akshay Wakhare, ambidextrous Akshay Karnewar and India pacer Umesh Yadav and T20 specialists like Apoorv Wankhade, Jitesh Sharma (another stumper) and IPL player Darshan Nalkande. Then there are a lot of youngsters who will be itching to make a mark. Given their (north-east teams) less exposure to cricket at top level in domestic cricket, it should be relatively easy for Vidarbha to top the pool and qualify for one of the three pre-quarterfinals.

 

Winners of each Elite group will progress directly to the quarter-finals. The second-placed teams (five) and winners of the Plate Group will play pre-quarters matches to determine the final eight quarter-finals. Somebody has said that cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties, though. Vidarbha Team (from): Akshay Wadkar (C), Siddhesh Wath (VC) Atharva Taide, R Sanjay, Ganesh Satish, Yash Rathod, Jitesh Sharma, Apoorv Wankhade, Shubham Dubey, Akshay Karnewar, Akshay Wakhare, Harsh Dubey, Parth Rekhade, Ganesh Bhosale, Darshan Nalkande, Yash Thakur, Siddhesh Neral, Aditya Thakare, Sooraj Rai, Umesh Yadav. Support Staff: Pritam Gandhe (Coach), Dr Nitin Khurana (Physio), Yuvraj Singh Dasondhi (Trainer), Aniruddha Deshpande (Video Analyst), Manoj Sapkal (Manager).