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Mumbai: History and form make them the odds-on favourites but Mumbai are not taking things for granted ahead of Saturday's Ranji Trophy summit showdown with Saurashtra, who have upset many an apple cart en route to the final.
The sheer weight of having senior cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, captain Ajit Agarkar and Wasim Jaffer along with top performers like Abhishek Nayar and wicketkeeper Aditya Tare in their ranks tilts the scale heavily in favour of the 39-time champions.
West Zone rivals Saurashtra, who have advanced to the summit clash for the first time, are the underdogs in the five-day clash on a wicket that is believed to be loaded heavily in favour of the pace bowlers, at least initially.
However the hosts, who have lost just four finals out of the 43 they had figured in, in the long history of the national championship, are not taking things for granted.
Both the teams would miss key members for the all-important clash with Saurashtra appearing the more weak in the absence of players like Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja, both playing in the ODI rubber against England.
Tendulkar has played just three games this season and has contributed in each of them, scoring a ton in the league opener against Railways and in the quarter-final against Baroda, before notching up a crucial 56 against Services to help Mumbai recover from a difficult position (23 for 3) in the company of Nayar who made 70.
Nayar has been the stand-out batsman, notching up 940 runs at over 100 per innings, inclusive of three hundreds and eight fifties, and close behind him are Tare (839 runs), Rohit (712) and Wasim Jaffer (703).
Mumbai's bowling's stand-out performer has been left-arm spinner Ankit Chavan with a haul of 33 wickets in nine ties, including an incredible 9-23 in their league game here against Punjab.
Mumbai lack an off-spinner, and Agarkar insisted they have the two left-arm bowlers in Chavan and newcomer Vishal Dabholkar to turn to.
Saurashtra, on the contrary, have been heavily dependent on Pujara and Jadeja in batting and their absence is likely to hit them hard though youngsters Sheldon Jackson and Aarpit Vasavada have propped up the middle-order well.
Veteran Sitanshu Kotak, who frustrated Mumbai by batting for two full days when the two teams last met at this stadium in 2007, is there to launch the innings with wicketkeeper Sagar Jogiyani.
The medium pace attack of the visitors -- comprising Jaydev Unadkat, the experienced Sidharth Trivedi and either Sandip Maniar or Saurya Sanandiya -- needs to step up against the strong Mumbai batting line-up.
Saurashtra's spin attack is, however, more varied than the home team's and comprises off-spinners Vishal Doshi and Kamlesh Makwana and left-arm spinner Dharmendra Jadeja.
According to curator Sudhir Naik, the wicket would help the pace bowlers with seam movement and bounce over the first three days before affording turn to the spinners on the last two days.
Teams from:
Mumbai: Ajit Agarkar (Captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Jaffer, Suryakumar Yadav, Dhaval Kulkarni, Kaustubh Pawar, Abhishek Nayar, Hiken Shah, Aditya Tare (wk), Ankit Chavan, Nikhil Patil (Jr.), Javed Khan, Sushant Marathe, Shardul Thakur and Vishal Dabholkar.
Saurashtra: Jaydev Shah (Captain), Sagar Jogiyani, Sitanshu Kotak, Sheldon Jackson, Arpit Vasavada, Rahul Dave, Kamlesh Makwana, Chirag Pathak, Sidharth Trivedi, Jaydev Unadkat, Vishal Joshi, Dharmendra Jadeja, Sandip Maniyar, Saurya Sanandiya and Harsh Anghan.
Match facts
Jan 26-30, 2013
Start time 09:30 local (04:00 GMT)
