There is tremendous excitement among cricket lovers about the arrival of Indian Test and ODI team captain Shubman Gill on the field in the second round of this season of Ranji Trophy. Gill will be seen playing for the Punjab team in this important round of the domestic first-class cricket tournament which is going to start across the country from Sunday. Although, he could not be a part of the team in the first round of the tournament, but now with his return in the upcoming match against Chhattisgarh, Punjab’s batting will look very strong.
Shubman Gill is in great form
This comeback of Shubman Gill is happening at a time when his bat is scoring a lot of runs at the international level. He recently scored a total of 334 runs in the ODI series played against West Indies. In the second match of the series, he demonstrated his amazing batting and played a historic inning of 223 runs unbeaten on 133 balls. With this excellent double century, he had made a new and wonderful record in his name for scoring the fastest double century in ODI cricket history.
Status of Punjab team and other matches
In Gill’s absence, former India Under-19 team captain Uday Saharan took over the captaincy of Punjab in the first round match, where the team took three points against Assam by taking the lead on the basis of first innings. Now with the addition of Gill against Chhattisgarh, the team’s confidence has increased a lot. On the other hand, Karnataka will face Saurashtra in Aloor in another exciting match of Group B. The command of Karnataka will be in the hands of all-rounder Shreyas Gopal. The team may be missing Ravichandran Smaran, who has been selected in the India A team, but the bowling attack has become quite strong with the return of fast bowlers Vidwath Kawerappa and Vaishak Vijayakumar after getting fit. In the same group, Hyderabad team will also play to continue its winning campaign against Andhra.
Challenges and changes from other teams
In the match played under Group D, Mumbai team will face Himachal Pradesh. Mumbai will miss vice-captain Ayush Mhatre in this match due to injury, and Yashasvi Jaiswal will also be unavailable due to his selection in the India A team for the New Zealand tour. In their place, Divyansh Saxena and Angkrish Raghuvanshi have been given place in the team, due to which a big responsibility has fallen on middle-order batsman Sarfaraz Khan. Apart from this, in Group C, Delhi and Army teams will try to make a comeback leaving behind their previous defeats. Delhi’s competition with Gujarat and Army’s competition with Bengal is certain. In Group A, Uttar Pradesh team will try to maintain its winning streak against Goa, whereas the Goa team, which suffered a big defeat in the last match, will face a tough challenge to make a comeback. In the Plate Group, experienced player Neelam Obi will captain Arunachal Pradesh against Sikkim.
