The Hindu : South aiming for second place finish

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 09, 2002

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Sport - Cricket

South aiming for second place finish

Jaipur April 8. With both teams out of contention for the title, South Zone and Central Zone would be fighting for pride in their last league match of the Duleep Trophy starting here on Tuesday.

With 14 points till now, South can still aim for the second spot, but Central, which has lost its last three matches, is yet to open its account.

South is going into the match with two changes, replacing an injured Hemang Badani with Arjun Yadav and seamer Avinash Aware coming in for M.R. Srinivas.

``Hemang Badani is out because he has hurt his back. We will miss him because he was in good form in the last match and was mainstay of the team with his spirit and never say die attitude,'' the South skipper M.S.K. Prasad told PTI on Monday.

The skipper, a former India wicket-keeper trying to make a comeback to the national squad, said he was fully fit after undergoing an operation for dislocation of back muscle last year.

``Since then I was out of action but I am confident of making a comeback. I am keeping well and have good scores apart from a hundred in the previous match,'' said Prasad, adding that his team would not let any chances go abegging in this match.

``We frittered away first innings lead in the first two matches. But things are improving now. In a four-day match, you cannot afford to miss chances,'' he said. Though Badani's absence is a serious blow, South still have a strong batting line-up with the likes of Sridharan Sriram, Nandkishore Yadav, Vijay Bhardwaj and Barrington Rowland, besides Prasad himself, in their ranks.

The bowling department looks equally sound with the experienced Dodda Ganesh spearheading the new-ball attack and Madhukar and replacement Aware as backup.

Central would desperately be trying to gain some points from this match after drawing blank from the first three games. ``We are too shocked. Poor batting has been the reason for our failure,'' said Central coach Rajinder Singh Hans, a former left-arm spinner. ``We will be playing for our honour. Our batsmen have to improve their performance,'' he added.

Central skipper Gagan Khoda has sweet memories of his team's last encounter with South in the previous season when he scored a triple hundred. He has not been doing well this year and is keen to get a good score here. Khoda too said batting had let the team down but added that the bowling too lacked the sting.

``The bowling has been poor and former India spinner Narendra Hirwani too has been out of sorts,'' he said. Despite three successive losses, there are no changes in the Central squad.

* The teams (from):

South Zone: M.S.K Prasad (capt. and wicket-keeper), S. Sriram, Nandkishore, Vijay Bharadwaj, Vinay Kumar, S. Sharath, Kiran Powar, Barrington Rowland, R.V. Ch. Prasad, H. Watekar, Suresh Kumar, Dodda Ganesh, N. Madhukar and Avinash Aware.

Central Zone: Gagan Khoda (capt.), Jyoti Yadav, Jaiprakash Yadav, Yere Goud, Raja Ali, Narendra Hirwani, Rohit Jhalani (wicket-keeper), Harvinder Singh, Sanjay Pandey, Salabh Srivastav, Kulamani Parida, Rahul Kanwat, Tejenderpal Singh, Samir Ghare and Paresh Sutane.

— PTI

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