TWICE in three days, Vidarbha and Railways will be sharing a common platform! After Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first-ever Vande Bharat train from iconic Nagpur Railway Station on Sunday, Railways’ cricket team will kick-start the Ranji Trophy campaign against Vidarbha at VCA Stadium in Jamtha from Tuesday.

Both the sides have had rigorous practise sessions on two days and are ready to begin the red ball domestic season. This will be after three years that a full season is on offer. After two seasons were consumed by the COVID virus, last year saw a truncated version of the prestigious and premier BCCI national event. Two-time champions Vidarbha, who failed to make it to the knock-outs in the last edition, will be going all out to prove a point.

They have a more or less settled unit with more seasoned — the tried and tested ones — and a few newcomers.

The 15-member side boasts of eight batsmen including two stumpers — Faiz, his deputy Akshay Wadkar, R Sanjay, Atharva Taide, pro Ganesh Satish, Mohit Kale, Apoorv Wankhade and Siddhesh Wath.

Green horn southpaw Harsh Dubey will assist seasoned duo of Aditya Sarvate and Akshay Wakhare. The four-pronged pace attack includes Yash Thakur, Aditya Thakre, Rajneesh Gurbani and Lalit Yadav.

Though the pitch looked on greener side from a distance, it will be a typical Jamtha turf. It will help seamers in the morning sessions, the batted in noon and spinners after a couple of days. It will be interesting to see the final Vidarbha eleven.

It will also be first red ball game for former India seamer Sanjeev Sharma as Vidarbha’s coach. He has replaced Chandrakant Pandit, the force behind Vidarbha’s rise in domestic cricket.

Incidentally, former India player Karn Sharma, who will be leading Railways, was 12th man in Vidarbha’s both the Ranji Trophy triumphs. The leg-spinner, who knows in and out of Vidarbha players, will definitely plan downfall of his former colleagues. The side has been bolstered by inclusion of Upendra Yadav, who was part of Indian team in Bangladesh and joined the squad on Sunday. Records favour Railways. In their 29 matches, Railways have won on 12 occasions while Vidarbha recorded three outright wins. Also, in 14 drawn encounters, Railways lead 9-5 on the first innings lead count. But they say, (track) records are meant to be broken.