Ranji: Tamil Nadu test for depleted Mumbai

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It’s a marvel how Mumbai, despite being weighed down with injuries, controversies and a perpetually depleted squad throughout the 2011-12 season, have managed to make it so far.

Indeed, when they turn up on Monday for their semi-final against a strong Tamil Nadu side at the Wankehde, they will be without two star batsmen and pacers, three of which are on national duty and one — Ajit Agarakar — still unavailable, not having got over his exclusion from the Mumbai’s playing XI against Orissa last month.

Not only are Wasim Jaffer’s bunch still undefeated this season, they have also registered more wins than any other side.

The 39-time champions have to their name five Ranji title triumphs in the last 10 seasons. Still, if they were to go all the way this time round, it will be nothing short of a fairytale.

Laxmipathy Balaji’s side have few very noticeable weaknesses, and the hosts would do well to exploit them if they hope to make it to clinch trophy no. 40.

Apart from their 30-year-old skipper Balaji, who is just 12 short of 300 first class wickets, the visiting

team’s attack lacks experience.

Without R. Ashwin, they have been forced to rely on two newcomers — medium pacer Jagannath Kaushik and off-spinner Sunny Gupta along with another young left-arm spinner Aushik Srinivas to support their captain and pacer V. Yo Mahesh.

The teams (from) Tamil Nadu: Lakshmipathy Balaji (c), J Kaushik, R Aushik Srinivas, M Kaushik Gandhi, Sunny Suresh Gupta, Dinesh Karthik (wk), V Yo Mahesh, Abhinav Mukund, R Prasanna, Sunil Sam, Rahil S Shah, U Sushil, K Sri Vasudeva Das, Murali Vijay, S Badrinath, Malolan Rangarajan.

Mumbai: Wasim Jaffer (c), Ramesh Powar, Suryakumar Yadav, Iqbal Abdullah, Praful Waghela, Hiken Shah, Abhishek Nayar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Kshemal Waingankar, Kaustubh Pawar, Onkar Gurav, Ankit Chavan, Balwinder Singh Sandhu (Jr), Murtuza Hussain, Nikhil Patil (Jr).

Umpires: Peter Hartley and K Hariharan.