home matches this season but coach WV Raman feels it will help bring the players together

The only team to play all their Ranji matches away from home, Tamil Nadu, it seems, are at home in the Karnail Singh Stadium. A day ahead of their season opener against Railways, nobody seems to care about not playing back home in Chennai. Not at least coach WV Raman, who says it’s a blessing in disguise.

Given the format of these four-day matches, lot many times the host teams get their groundsmen to prepare pitches favouring their style of play. But with Tamil Nadu it is clearly different.

“In a way it is good for us. We’ll spend more time as a team and it’s good for bonding and spirit,” says Raman after finishing with fielding drills. “At times you can come under pressure playing at home. You get many well wishers who tell you to do so many things,” he adds.

The clarity in his thought gives way to doubts over Dinesh Karthik’s availability for this game. Karthik was called in as cover for the ongoing India-Australia seven match one day series for the opening slot because of injuries sustained by both Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. But he wasn’t named in the playing eleven for the fourth one-dayer against in Mohali.

Hopes of his starting against Railways have significantly improved. Apart from this, last year’s losing semi-finalists have a settled combination. Abhinav Mukund, Murali Vijay, Laxmipathy Balaji, Arun Kartik and Dinesh, who were very successful last season, make them a formidable outfit.

... contd.