Ranji Trophy: Will Haryana find a way to blunt Mumbai’s pace attack?

Mumbai versus Haryana brings back memories of two famous encounters. The first was the epic 1990-91 Ranji Trophy final, when Kapil Dev’s Hurricanes edged past Dilip Vengsarkar’s Dazzlers in a thrilling contest at the Wankhede Stadium.

The second was the 2013-14 league fixture at Lahli, remembered as Sachin Tendulkar’s last domestic match, less than two months before his international farewell.

When the two sides meet at the Sharad Pawar Academy ground on Monday, the latest chapter in this rivalry promises plenty of intrigue, with the Group D table-toppers set to face off in the most eagerly awaited clash of the season so far.

Both teams have handed comprehensive defeats to Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh in their opening two outings. Haryana, however, has just one bonus point from those victories compared to Mumbai’s two, leaving Ankit Kumar’s side a point adrift of the domestic powerhouse.

Having played both its matches at home, Haryana knows that facing Mumbai in its den presents its first significant test of the season. Much will depend on whether its pace attack, without Anshul Kamboj, can put Mumbai’s formidable batting line-up under sustained pressure and make a contest of it.

Mumbai, meanwhile, appears to have found its rhythm early. The new-ball pairing of Tushar Deshpande and Mohit Avasthi has been effective in unsettling batters, with the former exploiting pace and the latter generating movement. Their performances have ensured that Shardul Thakur’s absence has hardly been felt.

The batting, too, has looked reassuringly deep. Apart from openers Divyaansh Saxena and Angkrish Raghuvanshi, each of Mumbai’s top six specialist batters has registered at least one substantial score in the first two matches.

For all the history attached to this fixture, the immediate challenge for Haryana is a straightforward one: find a way to blunt Mumbai’s pace attack and disrupt a unit that has made an almost flawless start to its campaign.