By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, IANS
New Delhi : Delhi bowling coach Manoj Prabhakar said Saturday that his team has an even chance of beating an in-form Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy final, starting in Mumbai Wednesday.
Prabhakar, a former India all-rounder, told IANS here that Uttar Pradesh is not a team to be taken lightly and they can’t be given a free hand to run away with the match.
“Uttar Pradesh must realise that they would be as much under pressure as Delhi would be,” said Prabhakar who joined the Delhi squad at the start of the 2007-08 season.
Playing with a bit of pressure helps players to perform well, said Prabhakar, with his experience of 39 Tests and 130 One-Day Internationals.
“I realised while playing domestic as well as international cricket that until and unless you have pressure on you, you would not be able to perform to your potential,” said the 44-year-old.
Delhi entered the final defeating Baroda by seven wickets in Indore, while Uttar Pradesh beat Saurashtra in the other semi-final.
Prabhakar, who is working hard these days in preparing the team with coach Vijay Dahiya at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground, said it would be a contest between Delhi’s batting and Uttar Pradesh’s bowling. Uttar Pradesh have a varied attack with their new ball bowlers Praveen Kumar and Sudeep Tyagi and leg-spinner Piyush Chawla doing very well this season.
“I am more wary of their bowling attack than their batting,” Prabhakar said.
“Our strength is batting whereas Uttar Pradesh have adequate batting resources to take on our bowling. I know my boys are good against both pace and swing bowlers.”
Aware of the form of Uttar Pradesh’s principal bowlers Sudeep Tyagi, who is having a sensational debut season having taken 39 wickets, Praveen (28 in five) and Chawla (27 in seven), Prabhakar is working to weed out technical flaws in Delhi batsmen by giving them extended net sessions.
Although Delhi will miss Virender Sehwag, who is away in Australia, they can boast of in-form batsmen Aakash Chopra (648 runs in eight matches), Gambhir (600 in four), Mithun Manhas (598 in eight) and Shikhar Dhawan (502 in seven).
“All my specialist batsmen have scored centuries this season,” Prabhakar, who himself opened both batting and bowling for India, pointed out proudly.
But he is not taking chances as he is particularly keen that his batsmen learn to leave the moving ball as the conditions at the Wankhede Stadium tend to assist swing bowlers because of its proximity to the Arabian Sea.
“Until and unless you know how to leave the swinging ball you cannot survive for long,” Prabhakar stressed.