The Vijay Hazare Trophy final, on Saturday, will see Delhi – with their impressive pace attack – taking on Mumbai, who, arguably, have the strongest battling line-up in the tournament.
Navdeep Saini and Kulwant Khejroliya have done a good job for Delhi in helpful conditions at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
For Mumbai, their batsmen have won matches. To test their batting line-up comprising Ajinkya Rahane, Prithivi Shaw and an in-form captain Shreyas Iyer, Delhi’s pacers would find it tough.
Rohit Sharma, who played the quarter-finals and semi-finals, has joined the Indian ODI squad for the series against West Indies, beginning on Sunday. But his absence wouldn’t hurt Mumbai much with the batting powerhouses present in their line-up.
Mumbai cruised into the final, beating Bihar and Hyderabad in the quarter- and semi-final, respectively.
Pacers Dhawal Kulkarni and Tushar Deshpande have delivered on crucial moments. Young left-arm spinner Shams Mulani has been fantastic; he’s Mumbai’s leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 16 scalps.
Captain Iyer has amassed 366 runs at an average of 122 including two hundreds and a fifty. Shaw, in the four games he has played so far, scored 348 runs at 87 including a quickfire 61 in the semi-final.
However, it will be a test for them against Saini and Khejroliya. Both Delhi pacers and rest of the team will be fired up for the final, considering they came from behind to beat Jharkhand in the second semi-final.
The Gautam Gambhir-led side were on the brink of elimination before Pawan Negi, batting at number nine, played a sensible knock under pressure to take Delhi over the line in the final over of the match.
The in-form skipper, who missed out in the last game, will be expected to deliver again alongside Dhruv Shorey and Nitish Rana.
Gambhir’s opening partner Unmukt Chand has not yet fired in the knock-out stage and will be under pressure to perform in the all-important final.
