##RoI Vs Delhi, Irani Trophy, Vadodara##

Should be an exciting contest with RoI XI being mostly the Indian XI which will take on Aussies in the first test.

Should be an exciting contest...

Thats farking bullshit.

Here is list who have won this trophy how many times.

RoI - 19 times,

Bombay/Mumbai - 14 times,

K'taka - 4 times,

Delhi - 2 times,

Railways - 2 times,

Shared - 2 times,

Haryana - Once,

Hyd - Once,

TN - Once.

Padmakar Shivalkar (51 wickets @ 21) is the leading bowler and Vishy (1001 runs @ 77) is the leading run scorer in this trophy.

Apparently, Kumble wants to go with 5 bowlers in this match which is understandable as he doesn't want the bowlers to get too stressed before the series starts.

But in that case, either Dravid will have to open (there are no specialist openers apart from Jaffer in the squad) or no place for Badninath.

What can the team be?

Jaffer
Dravid
Laxman
Kaif
Badrinath
Dhoni
Kumble
Bhajji
Zaheer
RP Singh
Munaf Patel

Or will it be different?

If selectors had any place for Ganguly then they would've included him in RoI XI, especially considering that its virtually India's first test XI.

And now that they didn't include him in the RoI XI, not even when Tendulkar pulled out of it, it means that they're sending clear signals to him.

SG wrote:If selectors had any place for Ganguly then they would've included him in RoI XI, especially considering that its virtually India's first test XI.

And now that they didn't include him in the RoI XI, not even when Tendulkar pulled out of it, it means that they're sending clear signals to him.

Thats true. And I read somewhere that Ganguly failed in a club match too.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Ganguly-fails-to-make-an-impact/364141

But do you have faith in Kaif and Badrinath? Kaif is okay and I don't have faith in Badrinath after his failures against A bowlers from the other teams.

Badri won't get in Indian test team atleast for an year or so.

While Kaif has a bright chance if he does very well in this match.

I know. But he is there as the first in pecking order if Kaif is included in the XI.

Kumble wins toss and RoI are batting first.

Dravid and Jaffer will open, while Badri and Kaif get chance to stake a claim for a place in Indian middle order.

Slow start for RoI which was expected considering that Dravid is opening.

Dravid dropped.

UMB was all set to catch him in slips when Chopra decided to intervene.