LUCKNOW, Jan. 12 -- Former joint winners and favourites Uttar Pradesh would be chasing a new milestone of winning their eighth match in a row for the first time when they take on Saurashtra in their quarterfinal match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy at Bengaluru on Monday. Led by Rinku Singh, Uttar Pradesh have won seven matches so far to finish at top in the Elite Group B this season, and if they win against Saurashtra on Monday, it would be a new achievement for them as so far they have equalled their own record of seven wins in a row, which they had in 2004-05 when Uttar Pradesh shared the trophy with Tamil Nadu after the final match ended in a tie. In 2005-06 Uttar Pradesh was runner-up after losing to Railways before repeating the same feat in 2020-21 after losing to Mumbai in New Delhi. In the match against Saurashtra on Monday, Uttar Pradesh will be missing the services of inform keeper-batter Dhruv Jurel, who has been named in Team India as a replacement of injured Rishabh Pant for the ODI home series against New Zealand that started on Sunday. Ace spinner Kuldeep Yadav had already joined the Team India after playing just two matches for Uttar Pradesh this season. However, this will be the time for batters like Priyam Garg and Sameer Rizvi to shoulder the responsibility of scoring big runs in the middle order in absence of Jurel, who played a big role in Uttar Pradesh's journey so far by scoring 558 runs in seven matches at an average of 93. Former UP skipper Garg has so far scored 201 runs with 67 being his highest, whereas Rizvi has 150 runs at an average of 37.50. Besides them, for sure, Uttar Pradesh would be mostly relying on their trusted ones like keeper-batter Aryan Juyal (492 runs, 82 Avg), skipper Rinku Singh (408 runs, 136 Avg) and opener Abhishek Goswami (277 runs, 46.16 Avg). The team also have young all-rounders in the form of Vipraj Nigam (14 wickets, 5.72 Eco) and Prashant Veer (103 runs, 51.50 Avg, and 9 wickets, 5.09 Eco) and these two are capable enough to turn the tables under any circumstances. But Rinku and Co would once again be heavily dependent on their star leg spinner Zeeshan Ansari, who in his debut season of List A cricket has been at the top position overall with 21 wickets at an economy of 4.56. "Zeeshan has been a wonderful all-rounder too. He has the ability to score quick runs in local cricket as well as in the UPT20 League too, and this Lucknow-boy has proved his worth on a number of occasions," said former UP coach Gyanendra Pandey on Sunday. He also said that Uttar Pradesh have always been a force to reckon with in domestic cricket and the Rinku Singh led side has all the possibility of winning the coveted trophy for Uttar Pradesh yet another time. "This time, we have the best side in comparison to last few years and I can see a similar spark in the players as the players had a few years ago when Uttar Pradesh had made it to the final," said Pandey, who was the coach of the side then when Uttar Pradesh lost to Mumbai in the final. As far as Saurashtra are concerned, they finished second in Elite Group D to qualify for the quarterfinal with five wins and two losses so far. In the batting departments, they will again be relying on their tried and tested ones like Sammer Gajjar (416 runs), Rcuhit Ahir (252 runs), Harvik Desai (397 runs), Vishvaraj Jadeja (362 runs) and Chirag Jani (268 runs, 9 wickets). Pacer Ankur Panwar would be aiming to add more wickets to his this season's tally of 17, along with left-arm medium pacer Chetan Sakariya, who has so far taken eight wickets and hold a lot of promise for the Harvik Desai-led side at the Centre of Excellence Ground 2 at Bengaluru....