Amol Muzumdar and Deep Dasgupta at the Wankhede on Thursday. (PTI)

Calcutta: Going by the statistics, Mumbai are the favourites but considering the recent form, Bengal appear formidable when both face each other in the five-day Ranji Trophy Super League summit clash commencing at the Wankhede on Friday.

“We don’t want to go by previous records but on the current form we are playing good cricket and should win,” Deep Dasgupta said on Thursday. For the record, Bengal have met Mumbai in five Ranji Trophy finals with the former losing on each occasion.

Mumbai coach Praveen Amre though didn’t want to go into any sort of comparison between the two teams, he hinted that his team holds the edge. “I accept Bengal have played good cricket to reach the final, but we now have the chance to play excellently,” Amre said on the eve of the final.

Both the sides would be strengthened by the induction of the top players — Sachin Tendulkar, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan and Ramesh Powar for the hosts and Sourav Ganguly for the visitors. But Bengal will be on a slippery ground after Match Referee B. Raghunath has already advised Bengal manager Samir Dasgupta to convey Sourav that he shouldn’t breach the code as he had been called up for a hearing during Punjab match in Mohali.

Sourav could face two-match ban for a level II offence if he is found guilty again in the final. So another hearing may cost him a couple of East Zone National One-dayers to be held in Cuttack.

With Sachin returning, there wouldn’t be any problem to accommodate him in the young Mumbai side. “Mumbai have always been a star-studded outfit and so Sachin’s return will be a mixture of youth and experience,” Amre said.

Whether this being a Sachin-Sourav duel, the Bengal captain Deep felt the opposite. “This is not a Sourav-Sachin duel but a Bengal-Mumbai fight for the supremacy,” Deep told The Telegraph making it clear that they want to break the jinx of losing the finals.

Bengal, the last year’s runners-up made the finals 13 times winning only on two occasions. The only morale-booster for Bengal is their two points against Mumbai in the Super League stage.

According to the Bengal team sources, the wickets seemed a good one and it will help the seamers as well as the batsmen. “We may play three seamers — Ranadeb Bose, Sourav Sarkar and Ashok Dinda and in that case Shiv Sagar Singh may have to sit out again,” a team source revealed.

The Bengal team is likely to play Sourav in place of opener Subhamoy Das. Deep will open the innings with Arindam Das. However, in all probability, Bengal would again bank on their medium-pacers to use the early morning advantage, and decide to field on winning the toss.

Bengal, on the other hand, look slightly weak in the spin department with off-spinner Sourashish Lahiri not getting enough scope to bowl all through. Left arm spinner Shiv Sagar Singh on the other hand got only one match so far this season.

Deep and coach Paras Mhambrey will decide on the final XI after talking to Sourav in the morning.

TEAMS

Bengal (likely): Deep Dasgupta (captain), Sourav Ganguly, Rohan Gavaskar, Arindam Das, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Manoj Tiwari, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Saurashish Lahiri, Ranadeb Bose, Ashok Dinda, Sourav Sarkar.

Mumbai (from): Wasim Jaffer, Sahil Kukreja, Rohit Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar, Amol Muzumdar (captain), Avishek Nair, Vinayak Samant, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Zaheer Khan, Nilesh Kulkarni, Wilkin Mota.

Umpires: K. Hariharan (Delhi) & GA Pratapkumar (Tamil Nadu).

Match Referee: B. Raghunath (Karnataka).

Match starts: 9.30 am.