East will be the team to beat

By Vijay Lokapally

KANPUR, DEC 14. A handful of policemen and a handful of fans made an encouraging appearance on Thursday at the Green Park, the same venue where hundreds had failed to gain entry just two days ago for the India-Zimbabwe contest. But that was an international carnival and what begins here on Friday the prime limited overs competition of the domestic circuit, a burden for the organisers and a greater burden for the players.

South Zone meets East Zone on Friday in the opening fixture of the Deodhar Trophy, now in a knock-out format, but still a tournament devoid of `stars' who matter. The very Board which laments the absence of `stars' from domestic cricket, has made it convenient for them to stay away in the name of taking deserving rest.

Rest for S. Sriram and Hemang Badani, what a privilege for youngsters wanting to make a mark in their first season! Rest for Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan, the latter also in his first season. And rest for Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid....all rare faces in domestic cricket in any case.

By scheduling it a day after the one-day International at Rajkot, the tour and fixtures committee of the Board ensured that at least players from the South remained out of reckoning for the Deodhar match against East.

The North Zone team will, however, have the services of its cream while East and Central have remained unaffected and will be at their best, barring, of course, the absence of Ganguly.

West Zone has long got used to playing without Tendulkar even though he seems to have promised to come for the final should the team make grade. The final, slated at Lucknow for December 21, will be a benefit for Neeru Kapoor, a first- class cricketer from Uttar Pradesh.

A few talented youngsters will be on view in this tournament which also gives an opportunity to Robin Singh to prove wrong those who project his age as a weak point, giving little credence to his fitness and commitment. He leads a depleted side which was hit further today when an injured S. Ramesh of Tamil Nadu was replaced by Vanka Pratap of Hyderabad. Another change was Andhra's N. Madhukar coming in for N.P. Singh.

East will be a hard side to beat even though it lacks big names. Shiv Sunder Das is at the helm with six more Orissa players in the side after the State topped the zonal one-day league after a gap of 16 years.

The teams (from):

South Zone: Robin Singh (Capt), V.V.S. Laxman, Amit Pathak, Vanka Pratap, J. Arun Kumar, Vijay Bharadwaj, Y. Venugopal Rao, S. Sharath, Prasad Reddy, Dodda Ganesh, T. Kumaran, S. Mahesh, Sreekumar Nair, W.D. Balaji Rao, Venkatapathy Raju and N. Madhukar.

East: Shiv Sunder Das (Capt), Devang Gandhi, M.S. Dhoni, Nikhil Haldipur, Pravanjan Mullick, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Rohan Gavaskar, Rajeev Kumar, Sanjay Raul, Utpal Chatterjee, P. Jayachandra, Debasis Mahanty, M. Diwakar, Sanjay Satpathy and Chetan Sachdeva.

Umpires: Messrs S.B. Nandy and S.K. Sharma; Match observer: Mr. Ratin Mitra.

Schedule: Dec. 17: North vs. winner of South vs. East; Dec. 19: West vs. Central; Dec. 21: Final at Lucknow.

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