Ranji quarterfinal: Why there is more grit to Tamil Nadu than that meets the eye | Cricket News

Tamil Nadu skipper R Sai Kishore lays bare what his team has to overcome in the next five days at Nagpur where they face Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinals. “The real competition is with you. If you can face your own insecurities, if you can face your own mind, if you can face your own ego, I think there will be no one who can defeat you. I think that holds true for the Tamil Nadu team. If we can play to your potential, if we can face our own insecurities, there is no team that can stop us,” he says.
In many ways, this is what Tamil Nadu are up against when they cross over the ropes at the Civil Lines in Nagpur, the preferred home venue for Vidarbha. As expected Vidarbha — which pocketed more points (40) than any other team in the group stages – have rolled out a green carpet to welcome Tamil Nadu. On the eve of the match, there was thick grass cover, the conditions that Tamil Nadu encounters most often while playing away. It also tends to be a slippery slope of sorts as such pitches are mostly absent at home. Quite often, it is on those conditions that they have been found wanting, especially in knockouts, where the first day has often tended to be their biggest undoing.
Last season, in the semifinals against Mumbai at the BKC, the story was no different. Now at the Orange City, Tamil Nadu are hoping there won’t be any hiccups. “There is an insecurity whether this team can win the Ranji Trophy. If you can cross that, that is more than enough. There is a question whether this team can do well in away games like they do at home. These are the insecurities that we have to overcome,” Sai Kishore observes.
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“Until we cross over these, it is always going to ex. Two years ago this team had this insecurity as to whether we can make the knockouts. So the more you do it, it helps overcome those insecurities. As a captain I’ve seen this team overcome those insecurities, but until the world sees it, it will be there. That is what we are fighting against,” he adds.
Sense of purpose
Right from the start of the season, there was a sense of purpose in the way they went about their Ranji campaign. At times, it even felt they were prioritising the format more than anything else to bring home the trophy that has been elusive since 1988. They went on an exposure trip to the UK to give batsmen the exposure of playing on a green deck. It was vindicated in Delhi, where inserted on a green top they nearly pulled off an innings win.
After a long while, they went about building a crop of fast bowlers including two teenagers Pranav Raghavendra and D Deepesh and the highly rated Gurjapneet Singh. Despite being ravaged injuries – they will be without Baba Indrajith, Shahrukh Khan, Sandeep Warrier, Gurjapneet at Nagpur – they have managed to stay float unlike previous years. The timely return of B Sai Sudharsan and seamer Sonu Yadav will be an added boost to the team that lost the last league match to Jharkhand.
“To be honest, I’m fully immersed in the talent we have. Who is there, who isn’t there…there is no time for it. There is no point saying somebody isn’t here, because you are then really giving it to emotions. We have to live the moment. Whoever is here is my team. The good thing with having a young team is they don’t carry the baggage of the past and if I tell them, ‘dude, we have to win this game tomorrow’, they look at my eyes and say, ‘of course we will’. If this team is good enough, it is good enough,” he says.Story continues below this ad
Sai Kishore is also banking on the learning from last season and how they have been going about this business under L Balaji this time. Across formats, they have placed huge emphasis on taking conditions out of the equation and though it did spectacularly fail in white-ball, in red-ball they are beginning to feel at ease. All said and done, they missed a chance to play their quarterfinals at home losing in Jamshedpur.
It is a comfort that all teams would enjoy, but Sai Kishore offers a different perspective. “If Tamil Nadu wants to win the Ranji Trophy, they have to play matches in those conditions. We can’t just take the easy route and play at home, where we have found the formula to win. If Tamil Nadu has to win, it can’t just sit behind the door saying, no, no, we will play at home. That can’t happen. We have to take conditions out of the equation. I’ve been seeing Vidarbha players stand around the pitch and saying, ‘lets do this and that’ but not one of our players are worried about the pitch. In our mind, there is no such thing called home ground or away. Wherever you play in India, you should feel at home,” Sai Kishore adds.
We will have an answer to it in the next five days.