The hosts, having won two out of their three Group C Ranji Trophy Super League ties, are sitting pretty at the top of the leader board with 21 points while their rivals have six from two.

Karnataka hold all the aces against the weak visitors.

Teams (from)

Karnataka: Sunil Joshi (Captain), Sujith Somasundar, J Arun Kumar, Vijay R Bharadwaj, A Vijay, VS Thilak Naidu, D Ganesh, Mansoor Ali Khan, Anand Yalvigi, Somashekar Shiraguppi (wk), GK Anil Kumar, Mithun Beerala, B Akhil, GN Umesh, Anand Katti. Manager: B Raghunath.

Bihar: Sunil Kumar (captain, wk), Niklesh Ranjan, Zishan-ul-Yaquin, Tariq-ul-Rehman, Rajiv Kumar, Syed Arafi, CM Jha, Sunil Panda, Vikas Kumar, Dheeraj Kumar, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Somnath Jha, Brejesh Roi, Satish Singh. Coach: Kuldip Singh.Manager: V Venkat Ram.

MP-Saurashtra contest

INDORE: The Group C match between Madhya Pradesh and Saurashtra will begin at the Usha Raje ground tomorrow.

While Madhya Pradesh had scored six points in the two matches played against Karnataka and Bihar, Saurashtra has garnered five points.

Delhi favourite

NEW DELHI: With Delhi showing improved performance with each match, the dice seems to be loaded in their favour when they take on Railways in the four-day Group B Super League tie beginning at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground tomorrow.

Delhi had stretched Tamil Nadu to the wire before taking five points after being in sight of a possible victory.

Having finished on the wrong side of the drawn encounter against Maharashtra, the hosts need an outright win from the remaining two matches in this group.

Teams

Delhi (from): Ajay Sharma (captain), Vijay Dahiya, Ashu Dani, Akash Chopra, Rajneesh Chopra, Devender Sharma, Mithun Manhas, Virender Sehwag, Akash Malhotra, RobinSingh (Jr), Amit Bhandari, Rahul Sanghvi, Nikhil Chopra, Pankaj Joshi, Ashish Nehra, and Sandeep Angurala.

Railways (from): Prahlad Rawat (captain), Yera Goud, Sanjay Bangar, Saket Bhatia, Vishal Sharma, Devender Singh, Zakaria Zufri, Javed Zaman, Zakir Hussain, Kulamani Parida, WD Balaji Rao, P Munnuswami, Murali Karthik, Dharmendra Mishra and Abhay Sharma.

Must-win for TN

CHENNAI: Having failed to press home an outright win against a feisty Railways, Tamil Nadu, in yet another attempt to regain honours, take on Orissa in their third and penultimate outing in Group B at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

The four-day contest would be crucial for Tamil Nadu as they have to force an outright win to strengthen the chances to make it to the semi-finals. They have eight points from their previous two outings, three against Delhi and five against Railways.

Hyderabad hold edge

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad have a clear edge over Rajasthan when the two clash in their penultimate Group A match at theGymkhana grounds.

Rajasthan has 11 points but from three matches, while Hyderabad, the only side in the group to score an outright victory so far, have 11 points from two matches.

Key tie for Baroda

BARODA: Baroda would take on Punjab in the Group A encounter beginning at IPCL ground tomorrow.

To qualify for the knockout round, Baroda need an outright victory against Punjab, or in their last match against Hyderabad which is also to be played here from 13th March.

The teams

Baroda (from): Tushar Arothe (captain), Jacob Martin, RA Swaroop, Connor Williams, Ajit Bhoite, Satyajit Parab, Himanshu Jadav, Moinuddin Kadri, Darshan Mulherkar, Bobby Badola (WK), Laxman Sivramakrishnan, Yogendra Wakaskar, Arjun Chawda and Umang Patel.

Punjab (from): Vikram Rathour (captain), Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sandip Sharma, Dinesh Mongia, Pankaj Dharmani, Amit Sharma, Sanjay Kumar, Harminder Jugnu (WK), Bharat Bhushan, Navdeep Singh, Kailesh Chandra, Harman Hari, Rakesh Saini and LalitKumar.