Chennai, Mar 13: Reminiscent of the finals between the two teams in 1987, Tamil Nadu and railways will be battling it out in the five-day semi-final match of the Ranji Trophy Cricket Championship to be played at the M A Chidambaram Stadium here from today. Playing on the home turf, Tamil Nadu will start as favourites, but they will be under pressure, having to settle a score with railways, who had defeated them when the teams last met in 2002 in the quarter-finals.

While Tamil Nadu, who had lost to Mumbai in the final last year from a position of strength, qualified for the semi-finals in the new format this year from elite b ahead of Hyderabad, railways have qualified from elite a group behind Mumbai. Mumbai are taking on Hyderabad in the other semi-final match. Tamil Nadu, fielding many youngsters, will be missing Hemang Badani and more so its fast bowling spearhead L Balaji, who are part of the Indian team that is currently touring Pakistan.
Bureau Report