Post News Network
Cuttack, Feb3: Both Orissa and Saurashtra players trained at the Barabati Stadium here Wednesday. The two teams are currently lying at the bottom of Pool B and will fight very hard in the tie starting February 6 to avoid relegation.
Orissa have 14 points while Saurashtra lying at the bottom of Pool B are on 10 points. A draw will be sufficient for the hosts to avoid being relegated to Pool C. Saurashtra, who this year are without their highly successful coach Debu Mitra, however, have to win the game outright, and if possible with a bonus point if they want to stay in the same group. Even a first innings lead would not be sufficient for them.
The Barabati track, however, is expected to favour the batters of both the sides. Orissa definitely should adopt safety first tactics first before going for victory.
Orissa players did a fair bit of batting and bowling practice in the afternoon under the guidance of chief coach Debashis Mohanty and batting coach Shiv Sundar Das. Captain Abhilash Mallick, comeback man Natraj Behera, Govind Poddar, Biplab Samanrtay, Pratik Das, Anurag Sarangi, Paresh Patel and Haladhar Das batted at the nets.
Basant Mohanty, Deepak Behera, Alok Mangaraj and Suryakanta Pradhan bowled under the guidance of Debashis.
Saurashtra players under the leadership of Jayadev Saha also went through their drills earlier in the morning. The cynosure of all eyes was Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara who batted for a substantial period.
International stars Sudeep Tyagi, Sidhartha Trivedi and Jayadev Unadkat honed their bowling skills.
“Our guys are confident after beating Punjab on their home ground. We hope to repeat the same act against Saurashtra,” stated Abhilash after the end of the training session.
