THE man who made them championswill nowwant to see the same team lose against his current side. Chandrakant Pandit, who coached Vidarbha to back to back Ranji and Irani titles in the last decade,will nowscript adifferent plot to dethrone his former side from the topwhen the hosts take onMadhyaPradeshin their Elite Group ‘A’Ranji Trophy match at VCA’s Jamtha Stadium from Monday. Pandit, who was coach of Vidarbha in 2017-18 and 2018- 19 title winning seasons, is now with Madhya Pradesh side and will sit in the rivalcamp when theAkshayWadkar-ledVidarbha team takes the field. Itwillalsobeanintriguingbattle between the style of coaching as well. Vidarbha team has continuedits dominance in last couple of seasonsunder coach Usman Ghani who guided the side to aRanjiTrophy,Irani Cup and also coached Central Zone to Duleep Trophy titles while Pandit has aprovenrecordwith manytitlesasacoach.Thecoaching acumen of the two will be at display in the next four days. However, several winter shave passedsince Pandit parted ways with Vidarbha. The hosts have grown in stature and theirperformance has only seen anorthwardjourney.Vidarbhawill have slight advantage as they will be aware of Pandit’s coaching style. If not all, at least five of Vidarbha players knowhow Pandit’s brain works. Captain wicket keeper-batter AkshayWadkar,AtharvaTaide, pacers RajneeshGurbani and Aditya Thakare, allhavelearned the success lessons from Pandit as they were part of the teams whichwon theirRanji titles

 

.They would be eager to provetheir former coach that his teachings are still afresh. Vidarbha are on the top of GroupAwith 19 points from threewinswhileMadhya Pradesh are at the fourth spot (13 points) with awin and two draws. Madhya Pradesh decimated Bihar in their last match by an inningsand 174runs.Thematch wascompleted inside two day with spinner Saransh Jain being the wrecker-in-chief taking a match haul of 13 wickets. Itwould be aninteresting battle between spinners Jain (16 wickets) and Vidarbha’s Harsh Dubey who has 14 wickets from three matches. Butthe Rajat Patidar-led side will first have to negotiate Vidarbha pacer Nachiket Bhute who has collected 14 wickets in last three matches. The pace department also has Praful Hinge,who was rested in the last game,Gurbani, Aditya Thakare, who has been includedin the side for thismatch, and Darshan Nalkande. Vidarbhaareinsearchofaperfect opening partner for Aman Mokhade.They havetried R Samarth once. It would beinteresting to see who walks in with Mokhade against MP. ForMPskipper Patidar, it would be adifficult ask to continue his rich formagainst such atalented bunch of Vidarbha’s seam and spin bowlers.The Madhya Pradesh skipper has hit two back to back centuries,after missing the opening game. But he will have to dig deep if he wishes to givehis coach and team his thirdcentury of the season.