Subbiah Pillai Trophy: in a new garb, and with added relevance

By Our Sports Reporter

CHENNAI, DEC. 4. The Subbiah Pillai Trophy, the premier one-day competition in South Zone, which wears a fresh look this time around, promises to be interesting, weather permitting.

The new format, that will see all the teams fighting it out in Chennai for a week, starting from tomorrow, is indeed a welcome one.

The tournament concludes on the 11th with 7th and 10th being the rest days. In all, three matches will be played every day.

Till last year, the Subbiah Pillai matches were held just prior to the Ranji Trophy contests at the various venues. And often their relevance was lost since attention was invariably riveted on the first class duels.

Now the tournament will gain in several respects. For a start, there would be more focus on the one-day games, and in the process, the players who perform.

Coming to the selection of the teams, there is room for greater clarity of thought. Till last season, the selectors primarily picked a common squads for the Subbiah Pillai and Ranji Trophy matches. Now the wise men can choose the one-day specialists who otherwise might not have figured in the scheme of things.

Defending champion and host Tamil Nadu begins its campaign against Karnataka on Tuesday. The home team will be without Hemang Badani and Sridharan Sriram, both of whom figure in the India one-day team, but there is enough depth in the side to compensate for their absence.

Opener Sadagopan Ramesh, paceman T. Kumaran and all- rounders Robin Singh and Aashish Kapoor will surely try to attract the attention of the selectors in a bid to fight their way back into the National side. Senior batsman S. Sharath has also been outstanding in the shorter variety of the game.

It will be a fine opportunity too for wicket-keeper batsman Reuben Paul and all-rounder S. Mahesh to stake their claims again. Among the youngsters, the left-handed C. Hemant Kumar is a good batsman, M.R. Shrinivas, a fine pace bowling prospect and R. Satish, an exciting fielder.

Karnataka, which was in contention for the title till the final round of matches last season, will be dependent on the dashing opener J. Arun Kumar, Mithun Beerala and Vijay Bharadwaj for the runs. Bharadwaj's off-spin could prove useful too. India discard Dodda Ganesh, and the young wicket-keeper batsman Thilak Naidu are the other crucial members of the side.

Daniel Manohar and Anirudh Singh should provide the thrust to the Hyderabad innings, while the performances of the young paceman Ghouse Baba and off-spinner Shivaji Yadav will be followed with interest. Not to forget the presence of the experienced left-arm spinner Venkatapathy Raju, always a factor in vital games.

Among the other teams, Kerala looks the best bet with a host of useful cricketers like Ajay Kudua, Sunil Oasis and Prashanth C. Menon.

The young Y. Venugopala Rao, a fluent middle-order batsman and an useful off-spinner, is a key man in the Andhra line-up while Tamil Nadu exports Tanveer Jabbar and Satyajit Medappa along with skipper Pravin Amre will have a major role to play for Goa.

In tomorrow's matches, Tamil Nadu meets Karnataka in MAC `A' (this will be the first major game here after the rejuvenation of the ground), Hyderabad takes on Andhra (ICL- Gurunanak), and Kerala will fight it out with Goa (Southern Railway).

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