By Paritosh Pramanik THE points table might look healthy with two wins from as many games but Vidarbha won’t be happywith their performance in the last game against Jammu and Kashmir,that’s for sure. To correct those follies from the previous game,the Akshay Wadkar-led side would take the field with moredetermination and aim for apolished performance when they meet arelatively easy opponent in Goainthe thirdround of their Elite Group ‘A’Ranji Trophy match at VCA’sJamtha Stadium starting Monday. Despite recording win sin both the matches,Vidarbha are at third spotonpointstablewhich is being led by Uttar Pradesh (14 points) followed by Baroda (13). Toreach the top two before the red-ball break, Vidarbha need outright victories with bonus points in the next two outings. To startwith, they will have to decimate Goaand then take on Baroda at the same venue from November 2. After pacers,led by Nachiket Bhute,starred in Srinagar, it will be the spinners once again who will be in focus when Vidarbha cross swords with Goa. Initially the redsoil pitch will assist the seamers but from Day 3 spinners will play abig role in the outcome of the match. Leading the charge would be left-arm orthodox Harsh Dubey who has collected 10 wickets in the last two games. Even though spinner Ganesh Bhosale is added to theVidarbha squad, the think tank, in all probability, may include Parth Rekhade in the team instead of Bhosale as the former can bat as well.

 

The pace department will haveYash Thakur, Bhute, Praful Hinge, Darshan Nalkande and Rajneesh Gurbani and out of the five, two will have to take the bench. Thakur will be eager to get some game time under his belt before he leaves for New Zealand forOne-Dayers.Gurbani would havedoubled the headache of coach Usman Ghani and captain Wadkar with his match-saving knock of 64 runs against Jammu and Kashmir. Vidarbha had tried Nalkande in their open era gainst Pondicherry who was promoted in the batting order but without any success. Gurbani may get achance in Nalkande’s place, if coach Ghani feels so. Aman Mokhade and last match’s centurion Ravikumar Samarth might again open the innings as Vidarbha try to settle their top order. The team will once againmiss Yash Rathod who is on India A duty in New Zealand andhas made acommendable unbeaten 44 in the first innings. Danish Malewar’s batissilent in the last two matches and it’s time he scores big in the coming games. Mandar Mahale had made aquiet debut against J&K but his match saving 25 in second innings might force the coach and captain to include him in the playing XI. Dhruv Shorey makes himself anautomatic choice in theXI with the experience he brings into the side. Captain Wadkar will man the middle order followed by Dubey, Rekhade who will be handy with the bat lower down the order. As for alow-on-confidence Goa, it will be an uphill task for captain Abhinav TejRana to lift his side after two defeats. The teamis at the seventh spot in the eight-team table. They lost their opener by an innings and 135 runs to Baroda and then were beaten by Uttar Pradesh by 68 runs. Openers Suyash Prabhu dessai and Shivendra Bhujbal will have to tackle theVidarbha pace batteries early in the innings. The Go an bowling department will be handled by Yash Kasvankar, Darshan Misal, Lalit Yadav, Amulya Pandrekar and Tejrana.