Xtra Time Web Desk: The 22 yards at Eden Gardens for Ranji Trophy final is full of grass and will favour the fast bowlers of both Bengal and Saurashtra. Jaydev Unadkat, who will back to lead Saurashtra spent a long time on the wicket guessing where to bowl on the track. Both sides will look to go in with a pace heavy attack.
Bengal will bank on the in-form pacers Mukesh Kumar, Akashdeep Singh and Ishan Porel who will surely pose a massive threat to the Saurashtra batters. The trio will look to extract pace, bounce and make the best use the green-top pitch and add more scalps to their tally. Medium pace all-rounder Akash Ghatak will come in place of left-arm spinner Pradipta Pramanick for the final.
On the other hand, Jaydev Unadkat will return to lead the Saurashtra side in a major boost for the team ahead of the final. The visitors will also have in their ranks Chetan Sakariya who bagged 7 wickets in the semi-final against Karnataka. They will also have Prerak Mankad as well.
A confident Bengal team will be aiming to go all guns blazing to end their 33-year wait for a Ranji Trophy title when they come up against a strong Saurashtra side in the summit clash at the Eden Gardens starting on Thursday.
The final will once again be a repeat of the 2019-20 title decider, and Bengal will aim for revenge in front of the home fans after being beaten by Saurashtra back then.
Bengal batting will revolve around the experience of captain Manoj Tiwary and Anustup Majumdar.
The rich form of top order batters Abhimanyu Easwaran and Sudip Kumar Gharami will give the home side a lot of confidence. The batting duo, who amassed over 750 runs each in the ongoing campaign, will once again aim to deliver on the big final.
But the opening combination is most likely to change again as Sumanta Gupta might come in place of Karan Lal to open the innings alongside Easwaran.
On the other hand, Saurashtra too have a strong batting line-up with the in-form Sheldon Jackson, Arpit Vasavada and Chirag Jani in the team.
Bengal will also look up to all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed will look to deliver both with bat and ball.
In a nut shell it is going to be an engrossing battle between bat and ball for the Ranji Trophy final.