ESPNcricinfo provides an overview of the top 18 sides in six parts. First up runners-up Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh
25-Sep-2015Tamil NaduTamil Nadu will look to captain Abhinav Mukund to give them a solid start•K Sivaraman
Where they finished last season
Runners-upBig Picture
Tamil Nadu began the last season not having made it to the knockouts for the last two years, without two big players in S Badrinath and KB Arun Karthik, were bottom-placed in their group after five matches and had regular captain R Prasanna ruled out for a few games with an injury. Then, like a switch had been flicked, new captain Abhinav Mukund, who has played five Tests, led a comeback that ended only when champions Karnataka proved too strong for them.”We hadn’t found ideal replacements [for Badrinath and Arun Karthik],” Abhinav said. “A lot of players were in their first seasons, or they were just trying to get their feet in first-class cricket, like [B] Indrajith or Vijay Shankar. But now, there are three of us in India A squad, a couple actually pushing for places [in the senior side].”Indrajith has been given a bigger responsibility as vice-captain, so, I think, with a mixture of Dinesh [Karthik] and Prasanna, and obviously Malolan [Rangarajan, offspinner] doing well with the ball, it’s definitely looking a lot more settled.”As bowling-coach-cum-player, former India bowler L Balaji provides the young and reinforced seam attack experience. Malolan will lead the spin attack, and Tamil Nadu will look to captain Abhinav, brothers Indrajith and Aparajith, and youngster Vijay Shankar to team up with the experienced Kathik and Prasanna for the runs.Players to watch out for
B Indrajith, 21 years old, is only into his third season of first-class cricket, but has already been made the vice-captain of the side. He scored 713 runs at an average of 44.56, including five fifties and a century in last year’s Ranji Trophy to finish third on the list of Tamil Nadu’s run-scorers.Over the last two seasons, Aswin Crist has emerged as one of the most promising pacers from Tamil Nadu. Abhinav called him the “quickest bowler in the team.” Crist finished with 15 wickets at 25.93 in the 2014-15 Ranji Trophy, including four wickets in the semi-final against Maharashtra. At 21, he will be expected to lead the seam attack this time around.Coaching staff
Tamil Nadu have dispensed with WV Raman’s services, and have named M Sanjay, Raman’s assistant last year, coach. They have roped in RI Palani as cricket manager. Palani had played a similar, overarching role during the 2011-12 season, when they were finalists.The big news, however, is that of L Balaji being named bowling coach and player, if conditions suit his bowling.Preparation
Ahead of last season, Tamil Nadu had fitness and skill-training camps in Wayanad and Mumbai, but they have opted to train in Chennai this time. A major reason for that is the amount of cricket they have been playing in the build up to the Ranji Trophy. Apart from the highly competitive TNCA first-division league, most players have been playing in tournaments like the KSCA invitation, Buchi Babu and the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup. Aparajith, Shankar and Abhinav have turned out for India A matches.”I think we never had a problem with the lead-up,” Mukund said. “Chennai is known to have a very strong league structure. They are all playing a lot of games and there is no one short of match practice.”Team news
Left-arm seamer Prasanth Parameswaran has moved to Goa, while left-arm spinner Aushik Srinivas hasn’t found a place in the squad for the first three games.Squad
Abhinav Mukund (capt), B Indrajith (vice-capt), Umashankar Sushil, B Aparajith, L Balaji, Bharath Shankar, DT Chandrasekar, Kaushik Gandhi, J Kousik, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ramaswamy Prasanna, M Mohammed, Malolan Rangarajan, Rahil Shah, Vijay Shankar, Lakshminarayanan Vignesh.In their own words
“It [making the final last year] has changed the way a lot of people are looking at our team. Not only from the outside, but within ourselves we have got the inner belief that we can go on to do better things. The youngsters that have come in want to win, which is good.”
Madhya PradeshAditya Shrivastava was a big positive for Madhya Pradesh last season•MPCA
Where they finished last season
Fourth in Group A with one win and six draws in eight matchesBig Picture
In their second match of the season last year, Madhya Pradesh took a 116-run, first-innings lead on a green top and put themselves in a comfortable place to notch up an early win. All they needed to do in the second innings was post a target to shut UP out of the game. Instead they crumbled for 63. Set a target of 180, UP’s lower order kept their nerve for the six-wicket win.For MP, it was the beginning of a pattern that repeated a few times through the season, against Tamil Nadu, Mumbai and most critically, in their final league match against Bengal, a draw which snuffed out their chances of a knock-out place.It’s a weakness that captain Devendra Bundela says the team will work hard towards this season. “At crucial times when we had to click we fell short by a bit,” Bundela said. “This season, however, we are confident of a good performance.”Like last season, much of the onus, particularly in the run-scoring department will rest on the shoulders of the 37-year-old Bundela, off-spinning allorunder Jalaj Saxena, Naman Ojha, who played India’s last Test, and Mohnish Mishra. The bowling department, led by Ishwar Pandey, has a few youngsters, and Bundela is keen for them to make an impression.The side for the first two matches – against Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – includes young medium-pacers Puneet Datey and Yogesh Rawat, who were impressive last season, left-arm spinner Ankit Sharma (their second-highest wicket-taker in Ranji Trophy 2014-15) and 18-year-old medium-pacer Avesh Khan, who made his first-class debut last season after representing India Under-19s in the 2014 World Cup. Udit Birla, who did not play a first-class game for MP last season, has been picked for the first two games. The squad also features uncapped opening batsman Rajat Patidar and wicketkeeper-batsman Ankit Dane as the 16th man.Players to watch out for
In Jalaj Saxena, Bundela and N Ojha, MP can count some of the most established names in domestic cricket among their line-up. The focus this season, however, will be on their youngsters – some of whom made their debuts last season.Twenty-two-year-old Aditya Shrivastava notched up scores of 91, 108*, 0 and 151 in the four first-class innings of his maiden season, including knocks against Karnataka and Bengal. Datey, an allrounder playing his first full Ranji Trophy season after a debut in 2013, was the leading wicket-taker for the side with 31 scalps in 14 innings at an average of 21.83. Rawat, who played five matches, took 15 wickets including a five-for against Bengal that allowed MP to enforce a follow-on in a crucial game. Another impressive performer was Avesh, who also finished with 15 wickets in five matches. Shrivastava, along with Datey and Rawat, were the positives of last season for MP, according to Bundela. With some experience behind them, the bowlers will be crucial in helping MP shut out matches.Coaching staff
Harvinder Singh Sodhi (coach), Mayank Agarwal (trainer), Balasaheb Tate (physio)Preparation
The preparation for MP’s main squad and reserve pool has included matches in the Nimbalkar Trophy in Pune, a tournament organised by the Vidarbha Cricket Association and a pre-season camp of 20 players.Squad
Devendra Bundela (capt), Naman Ojha, Avesh Khan, Ankit Sharma, Udit Birla, Ankit Dane, Puneet Datey, Harpreet Singh, Mihir Hirwani, Mohnish Mishra, Ishwar Pandey, Rajat Patidar, Rameez Khan, Yogesh Rawat, Jalaj Saxena, Aditya Shrivastava.In their own words
“We have wicketkeeping back-ups for Naman Ojha in Ankit Dane and Zafar Ali. The season is also quite long now so we have developed a good bench strength of fast bowlers.”
Uttar PradeshPraveen Kumar takes charge of Uttar Pradesh•Getty Images
Where they finished last season
After starting the Ranji Trophy with a win over Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh went on to lose three of their remaining seven matches to finish seventh in Group A, just ahead of Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir.Big Picture
After making it to the quarter-finals in 2013-14, UP managed only two wins last season, just avoiding relegation. To add to that, none of their batsmen featured among the top 50 run-scorers and their leading wicket-taker, Praveen Kumar, was 45th overall.UP have had a stronger bowling unit in recent times than batting with Praveen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, RP Singh and Piyush Chawla. They will be without Bhuvneshwar for at least the duration of the South Africa ODIs and T20Is, leaving much of the responsibility on new captain Praveen and Chawla, since RP Singh has moved to Gujarat and Imtiaz Ahmed is not in the squad. So the challenge for the younger bowlers such as chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav and medium-pacers Amit Mishra and Ankit Rajpoot will only get steeper.In the batting line-up, UP will bank on opener Tanmay Srivastava and the pressure will not cease for the inexperienced middle order – they relied a lot on Eklavya Dwivedi last time. They will be desperate for the return of Suresh Raina, who didn’t play a single Ranji match last year. This time he might be back in November, unless he gets a surprise call for the South Africa Tests.Players to watch
Sarfaraz Khan made his name in IPL 2015, after making numerous school records in Mumbai. Known for picking the gaps in the shorter formats with unorthodox shots, Sarfaraz’s main challenge will be to adapt to the four-day format. He was a part of the India squad for the 2014 Under-19 World Cup. He was dropped by Mumbai last season, soon after his first-class debut, after scoring only 95 runs from three matches, but followed that with 111 runs at a strike rate of 156.33 in his maiden IPL season. How UP will use the teenager will be interesting to watch.Twenty-year-old chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav also made his first-class debut last season just after being named among the 2015 World Cup probables. With Chawla the lead spinner and Ali Murtaza not in the squad, Kuldeep could move up the ranks this time. He got only five matches last season and is known to bowl good lengths with control and variations under his belt, including the wrong ‘un. He impressed against Bangladesh A in the third one-dayer recently with figures of 6-0-29-2, taking the wickets of Mominul Haque and Liton Das.Coaching staff
UP have a new coach this season in Rizwan Shamshad, replacing Venkatesh Prasad. A former middle-order batsman, Shamshad played most of his 108 first-class matches for UP between 1990 and 2006, scoring over 7000 runs with 19 hundreds at an average of 46.Preparation
In the lead-up to the season, there has been much happening with the UP squad. Seventeen-year-old Sarfaraz Khan switched from Mumbai to UP and the experienced RP Singh left his native state to join Gujarat. And to weaken UP’s middle order further, Parvinder Singh made the switch to Tripura.Team news
UP have named three uncapped players this season – Almas Shaukat, Deependra Pandey and Israr Khan. Shaukat made his name as an opener at the Under-19 and Under-22 levels and Pandey is an offspinner. “We didn’t have an offspinner and other teams have left-hand batsmen so we thought that would pinch us earlier,” Praveen said of Pandey’s selection. Israr is a fast bowler Praveen is confident about. In addition, there are six players in the squad of 16 who have played under ten first-class matches each.Squad
Praveen Kumar (capt), Eklavya Dwivedi (vice-capt), Umang Sharma, Mohammad Saif, Tanmay Srivastava, Himanshu Asnora, Almas Shaukat, Sarfaraz Khan, Akshdeep Nath, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla, Israr Khan, Kuldeep Yadav, Saurabh Kumar, Deependra Pandey, Ankit Rajpoot.In their own words
“The team is good, there are good fast bowlers and we have added some batsmen. There is a good mix of senior players and youth from Under-19 and Under-22 level, so it’s a good team. There was a good preparatory camp in Noida, we focussed on fitness.”