Assam-Jharkhand Ranji match begins today at Ranchi

Arup two wickets away from 200th victim in First Class

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: Assam will take on Jharkhand in their second Ranji trophy tie from tomorrow. The 4-day match will be held at Ranchi.

The tie was supposed to be held in Guwahati as per the earlier schedule but due to ongoing protest against CAA in the state BCCI shifted the game to Ranchi.

Assam team reached Ranchi last evening and made their first practice session today. However, they had to wait till the afternoon to get a look at the wicket as the ground was hosting Cooch Behar trophy match between Jharkhand and Mumbai which ended today.

Assam opened their season with the game against Services in their home turf and they collected three points from that match by virtue of the first-innings lead. The entire credit of this performance should go to the pacers of the team as they bowled beautifully in both the innings and kept the pressure on Services. Arup, the top performer, bagged nine wickets in the game. However, these times the batsmen and spinners likely to make the most of the responsibility as Jharkhand may not provide pacers friendly wickets.

Talking to The Sentinel the Assam’s captain Sibsankar Roy said, “Jharkhand knows well about our strong point and it looks like that they are going to play the match on a turf which would assist the spinners more. But we have a good pace attack and they are capable to take wickets on any surface. ”

When asked about his comment on the team’s batting in the first game the captain admitted that the batsmen weren’t able to play as per the expectation. “It’s true that most of our batsmen were not able to deliver as per the expectation in the first game but that is past. It’s a new game and we will try our best to put a good total on the board so that bowlers can defend it without taking any pressure,” said captain.

The match will be an interesting one for Assam’s pacer Arup Das as the bowler is on the verge to take the 200th first-class wicket. Arup made the first-class debut against the same opponent, whom he is going to face from tomorrow, in 2011 and to date collected 198 wickets from 55 matches.

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