Thaindian News

New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) The second round of Ranji Trophy ties will begin Thursday and teams will be looking to come out of their comfort zones and score outright wins.

All eyes will be again on star players like Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Parthiv Patel to name a few. Jadeja, Rohit, Raina and Patel were off to flying starts in the first round, scoring big centuries. Harbhajan, who is leading Punjab, went wicketless.

Mumbai was the only team to log points in the first round in an otherwise dull first round that saw all draws. Mumbai crushed Railways by 10 wickets to open their account with six points.

They will take on champions Rajasthan at home and would be looking to revenge their quarterfinal loss of last year.

Rajasthan need to step up their game. They were pushed to the wall by Karnataka in their opening encounter and managed to escape with a draw.

The formidable Karnataka team would eye an easy prey in Railways, who need to quickly regroup after the drubbing at the hands of Mumbai.

Punjab, who battled to earn a draw against Uttar Pradesh, will play Orissa in Mohali.

Delhi got a first innings lead of 59 against Haryana but the visitors fought back in the second. They will play Saurashtra, who racked up a mammoth 545 against Orissa courtesy Jadeja’s triple ton.

Fixtures:
Elite Division:
Group A: Mumbai v Rajasthan at Mumbai, Punjab v Orissa at Mohali, Railways v Karnataka at Delhi.

Group B: Baroda v Madhya Pradesh at Vadodara, Gujarat v Delhi at Valsad, Tamil Nadu v Haryana at Chennai, Uttar Pradesh v Saurashtra at Meerut.

Plate Division:
Group A: Kerala v Services in India, Andhra v Tripura at Vijayawada, Himachal Pradesh v Vidarbha at Dharamsala.

Group B: Assam v Goa at Guwahati, Hyderabad v Maharashtra at Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir v Jharkhand at Srinagar.