Delhi Vs Saurashtra - New Ranji season, new hopes

NEW DELHI: The Delhi team team got its first Ranji tie of the season shifted out of Ferozeshah Kotla to Roshanara Club. The reason given for the move was that the team wanted a resultoriented track. But a look at the pitch at Roshanara made one wonder if the pitch curator had got the message all mixed up.
The pitch is all brown rather than green and made Delhi opponent Saurashtra's coach, Shitanshu Kotak exclaim: "We expected the traditional Roshanara green-top once the match was moved out of Kotla.This doesn't look like a surface that would definitely produce a result.It will depend on how extraordinarily well a team plays or self-destructs. But it looks like a sporting pitch."
The match begins Sunday.
On the other hand, Delhi chief coach Vijay Dahiya reasoned that bounce was the the big difference between the two surfaces. "There is more bounce here which gives the bowlers more of a chance. Last year, we played on green pitches because Delhi were in a desperate position," Dahiya explained.
The Gautam Gambhir-led side has batting issues to sort out. Thus, Virender Sehwag, at the fag end of his career, finds himself batting at the same position where he started his career--in the middle-order.
"This is a fairly young side. Gautam will take charge at the top and Viru will be providing stability lower down the order," mentioned Dahiya.
Perhaps, the memories of the abject capitulation last year played a part on deciding the nature of the pitch. Hence, the team is thinking of playing five specialist bowlers and hopes that the batsmen dig in.
The poor form of the Delhi batting line-up, so impressive on paper, could aide Saurashtra, the perennial domestic underdogs. The visitors are starting afresh with Kotak moving into the coaching role.
While Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja are away in Australia, Saurashtra are now used to playing without them. The bigger setback for them is Jaydev Unadkat's absence because of a back stress fracture.
Their pace department, however, boasts of two well-known names -Siddharth Trivedi and Sudeep Tyagi . A good start to the season is what both teams are looking for as 'well begun is half done.' An interesting clash is in the offing.
Gambhir plants sapling in memory of Hughes, Lamba
In a touching gesture, Delhi skipper Gautam Gambhir and former India player Yashpal Sharma planted saplings in the memory of cricketers Philip Hughes and Raman Lamba who lost their lives on the playing ground.
"I think it was a beautiful gesture on the part of the club and I was more than willing to go ahead and plant the sapling with Gambhir," said Sharma, who is Delhi's chief selector.