UP aim for hat-trick of finals
Match facts
January 3-6Start time 09.30 (04.00 GMT)
Big picture
After dominating the late nineties, with three Ranji championships in four years, the next decade wasn't one to savour for Karnataka: they failed to reach the finals for ten straight years. In that time, Uttar Pradesh transformed themselves into perennial title contenders, contesting the finals thrice in the previous four years.
This season, though, a revamped Karnataka have had a hiccup-free ride into the semi-finals on the back of a promising bunch of young batsmen and a bowling attack with bite. They opened the campaign with a thumping 185-run victory over UP in Meerut, strolled to big wins in three of the remaining five league games, and are yet to even concede the first-innings lead in the tournament.
However, they can't take a tenacious UP lightly, particularly as they are up against a bowling line-up that includes three players (Praveen Kumar, RP Singh and Piyush Chawla) with international exposure. Also, UP are packed with players well-versed in dealing with the pressures of playing quality teams in knock-out Ranji encounters, which will be a novel experience for many of Karnataka's new boys.
UP have also shown tremendous appetite for a scrap this season, bouncing back to prevail from dire situations like when they were rolled over for 62 by Bengal in Kanpur. It's their bowling which will be their main strength, but their batsmen have put up timely, if not massive, runs to keep the season on track. "We are fighters, we don't give up," their captain Mohammad Kaif said on Saturday. "We don't have any player scoring 1400 runs in a season, players averaging around 30, maximum 40-45, but we have eleven players contributing all the time."
Form guide
(last five completed matches, most recent first)Karnataka - DWWWD
Uttar Pradesh - DWDWD
Players to watch
A blistering century in the IPL sprung Manish Pandey from anonymity into national limelight. Making runs in the hit-and-giggle world of Twenty20s is all very well, but can he cut it in the first-class arena, the critics asked? This season, he has shown he can. First, there was the aggressive 194 against UP to rescue Karnataka from 27 for 3, then a century against Irfan Pathan and Co. but the most important innings was the assured 115 in the quarter-finals, when he shepherded the Karnataka tail past Punjab's first-innings score.RP Singh has followed the well-worn path of Indian fast bowlers in recent times: start off mopping up plenty of wickets before gradually losing effectiveness over a few international seasons. It's nearly two years now since RP played a Test, and his state fast-bowling mates, Praveen and Sudeep Tyagi, are ahead of him in the limited-overs pecking order. It's been a lacklustre season so far - 20 wickets at 37.55 with no five-wicket hauls - and he doesn't have too many more first-class games to impress the selectors.
Team news
Rahul Dravid said the final eleven won't be chosen until he has had a look at the pitch on Sunday morning, but it will not be surprising if they retain the side that took on Punjab in the quarter-finals.
Karnataka (likely) 1 Robin Uthappa, 2 KB Pawan, 3 G Satish, 4 Rahul Dravid (capt), 5 Manish Pandey, 6 Amit Verma, 7 CM Gautam (wk), 8 Sunil Joshi, 9 Vinay Kumar, 10 A Mithun, 11 S Aravind.
With Praveen being available for the semi-finals, left-arm medium-pacer Shalabh Srivastava is likely to be sidelined. Chawla and Praveen Gupta will continue to share the spinning responsibilities.
Uttar Pradesh (likely) 1 Tanmay Srivastava, 2 Shivkant Shukla, 3 Mohammad Kaif (capt), 4 Rohit Srivastava, 5 Parvinder Singh, 6 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 7 Piyush Chawla, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 Amir Khan (wk), 10 Praveen Gupta, 11 RP Singh
Pitch and conditions
The track at the Chinnaswamy Stadium is expected to be a flat one, with both captains saying they would like to bat first on winning the toss. "It will not be like Delhi," joked the curator, Narayan Raju, referring to the abandoned one-dayer against Sri Lanka last week. He said there will be some bounce on the first day after which it will get a little slower. With both teams having plenty of batting depth, we might be in for a game similar to the one the last time these two teams faced each other at the Chinnaswamy Stadium; Karnataka piled on 511 after being sent in, only to see UP counter with 567 to take away three points from a drawn match.
Quotes
"I think they have the experience in the semi-final and final knock-out level but on current form and in this season we have the momentum and are playing a little bit better than they are."Rahul Dravid doesn't think a lack of experience in knock-out games will hold Karnataka back
"One advantage we have is that we have seen their young players, like Pandey, who are coming in, playing their first season, that will help us have better plans when they come in to bat than in the first match [in Meerut]."
Mohammad Kaif says UP won't be taken by surprise by Karnataka's young batsmen this time
Siddarth Ravindran is a sub-editor at Cricinfo