Mumbai, Jan 5: Mumbai, bidding to bag their 40th Ranji Trophy crown, start firm favourites against west zone rivals Baroda in the five-day quarterfinals commencing at Wankhede Stadium here tomorrow.
With the experienced lot of Sachin Tendulkar, skipper Ajit Agarkar and opener Wasim Jaffer to guide their fortunes, the hosts carry too many guns for the comfort of their rivals who will be without two key players—all-rounder Irfan Pathan and fast bowler Munaf Patel—both injured.
Yusuf Pathan, who has been out of action since breaking a finger in the league game at home against Vidarbha in early November, will lead the Baroda side.
Yusuf shone with both bat and ball in the second of his two games of the season for Baroda by grabbing 2 for 38 with his off-breaks. He also scored 78 against Vidarbha.
While Mumbai are bolstered by the availability of Tendulkar following his retirement from the ODI format and that of regular skipper Agarkar who missed the last league game against Gujarat due to injury, they would be without batsmen Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma and pace spearhead Zaheer Khan.
Rahane and Sharma are involved in the ODI series against Pakistan and Khan is yet to recover from the calf injury sustained in the previous game against Gujarat.
But even without the trio, the home team appears very strong with Tendulkar, in-form batsmen Abhishek Nayar (730 runs from 8 games), Wasim Jaffer (505 from 4) and Hiken Shah (630 from 7) along with young opener Kaustubh Pawar (457 from 7) and wicket keeper Aditya Tare (628 from 8).
