Railways have their task cut out when they take the field against Uttar Pradesh in their Ranji Trophy Elite Division match at the Karnail Singh Stadium from Saturday. Praveen Kumar has been declared fit to start, and together with the return of Suresh Raina, the UP side looks like a formidable unit.

“I am happy we will field a full-strength side in this match. Praveen is fit, and with Suresh returning to the side, we will get solidity as far as the batting is concerned,” said UP coach Gyanendra Pandey.

To make things a bit tough for UP, the hosts have decided to stick with the same pitch used in their previous matches against Andhra and Baroda — it has already been used twice and will assist spin.

The trio of the Railways spinners — Murali Kartik, Kulamani Parida and Karan Sharma — will again hold the key to the hosts’ chances in this match. But the pitch would also be the same for the UP spinners, and Piyush Chawla and Pradeep Gupta are capable of troubling the hosts in their own den.

“They have a very good bowling attack, but our bowlers are capable too. At this point we are not thinking about winning. We will take it session by session,” Railways coach Abhay Sharma said.

This match would, in all probability, decide which of these two teams book a spot in the Ranji quarterfinals. Only two points separate them, and a win would go a long way in securing a knock-out spot.