ON A roll in the CK Nayudu Trophy U-23 tournament, young left-arm spinner Gaurav Farde has been drafted into the senior side for the Odisha game. Considering the fact that Vidarbha bowling looked not that menacing in absence of star bowler Harsh Dubey and seamer Yash Thakur (both on India A duty) as the team failed to get the opponents out on fourth day track in their last game against Tamil Nadu, in-form Farde, who has taken 24 wickets in three games, might get a game straightaway.

 

“The playing eleven is yet to be decided but since he has been added to the squad, most probably we will play him,” said Wadkar who minces no words and keeps it straight and simple. On missing Harsh Dubey, the skipper said, “He has been our team’s best bowler and has the ability to turn any match on its head. Obviously, we miss him but the replacements we have are not any less.” Wadkar feels that except for a win in the last game, the tournament so far has been good. “The start has been good ... like how we wanted to play and move on. Last match we hoped for an outright win but could not take those last four wickets.

 

Our bowlers did a good job on a slow paata wicket but their batsmen adjusted to the home conditions to force a draw. We did not want to bat fourth and at least 200 runs lead was required. We gave our bowlers five overs in the evening and had we got a wicket or two there, it would have been easy next day as pressure would have been on them,” said the Ranji Trophy winning skipper. Anything is possible in cricket and the stumper does not want to be complacent against a side coming from two successive loses and placed second from the bottom.

 

“We never take any team lightly. Any team can stage a come back. They might not be on upper side in the table but they are not a bad team. We would try to keep our standards high and take those twenty wickets as soon as possible,” said Wadkar. On whether he was satisfied with second spot after three games, Wadkar remarked, “We would have been number one had we won the last match. There is still a long way to go in the tournament and we will try our best to finish on top.”