A desperate Delhi will be getting Ishant Sharma’s services one last time in the season as they face Umesh Yadav’s Vidarbha on a seamer-friendly pitch in a group D Ranji Trophy game starting on Sunday.

The New Zealand-bound Test team speedsters will be the star attraction on a track on which Vidarbha’s spin duo of Akshay Wakhare and Aditya Sarwate are unlikely to be as effective as they were on an under-prepared Jamtha track against Bengal.

While Vidarbha, with 17 points from four games, are placed third, Delhi are languishing at the 11th place in the cross-pool table (group A and B) with 10 points.

As usual, controversy followed the Delhi team as chairman of selectors Bantoo Singh show caused its administrative manager, Vivek Khurana, for calling off Saturday’s practice session.

“Vidarbha practised on Friday and when I came to Kotla in the evening, I saw that Delhi team’s training has been called off. I have show caused the manager and asked on whose permission the training was called off two days before a game,” Bantoo told reporters on the sidelines of a practice session.

Delhi’s first XI will comprise Hiten Dalal and Kunal Chandela as openers. Dhruv Shorey and Nitish Rana will be coming in at number three and four respectively, while Jonty Sidhu, Anuj Rawat and Lalit Yadav form the middle-order.

All-rounder Kunwar Bidhuri, Ishant, a fit-again Kulwant Khejroliya and Simarjeet Singh will form a four-pronged pace attack.

“Pitch is such we won’t go for a specialist spinner. We have Lalit and Nitish, who can bowl part-time off-spin,” Delhi selector Chetenya Nanda said.

Bengal look to bounce back

Desperately eyeing a return to winning ways, Bengal will rely on their spinners to do the trick against a struggling Hyderabad in their Ranji Trophy fixture in Kalyani from Sunday.

Bengal suffered a humiliating nine-wicket defeat to Vidarbha inside two days in an away fixture in the last round, slipping to eighth position in the cross pool of Group A and B teams.

With five teams set to make the cut for the quarterfinals, the task for the Arun Lal-coached side has become all the more challenging.

Bengal failed to take any advantage of the home conditions, settling for three points in their last two outings, against Andhra and Gujarat at the Eden Gardens.

Bengal have now gone for a spin-friendly track at the Kalyani Stadium, about 70-kms from here, hoping to win a match.

“Team’s looking in good shape. We have practised well and the players are looking focused and confident. It looks a good cricketing wicket. The ball might not turn from the first ball but it can gradually,” Bengal skipper Abhimanyu Easwaran said.

“We might go in with three spinners, let’s see how’s the wicket tomorrow morning. We need to get runs as a group. We need to score good runs and get to a good total.”

Under-23 batsman Kazi Junaid Saifi, who was initially named in the squad against Gujarat before being sent back for the CK Nayudu Trophy matches, has been drafted in. With Ritwik Roy Chowdhury injured, he is likely to make his Ranji debut.

Left-hander Saifi got the nod after scoring 534 runs to help Bengal win the National U-23 one-day tournament this season.

“You can’t control things like injury. The batters have prepared well for the game and we just need to get couple of hundreds if we can,” Easwaran added.

Bengal will also look up to the veteran Utpal Chatterjee, who will assist the side for the Hyderabad match, with bowling coach Ranadeb Bose being left out.

Hyderabad have been one of the weak teams of the group with the Arjun Yadav-coached team losing four of the five matches this season to sit at the bottom of the table.