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South batsmen to strive for consistency

By Our Sports Reporter

VISAKHAPATNAM JAN. 8. South Zone is looking for some consistency from its batsmen to stay in the race when it takes on East Zone in a crucial match in the Deodhar Trophy limited-overs cricket tournament at Municipal Corporation Stadium here on Thursday.

South which has five points from two matches desperately needs to win this match but its major source of worry has been the batting. If in the first match against Central Zone in Hyderabad, it was Arjun Yadav and Sridharan Sriram who steered the team to an emphatic win after the openers A.T. Rayudu and Rowland Barrington disappointed, then it was the other way round in the next match against West Zone in Bangalore as despite a century stand for first wicket, the middle-order comprising Hemang Badani, S. Sriram, Venugopala Rao and S. Sharath faltered.

Apparently, captain B.K. Venkatesh Prasad is hoping that his team will post a big score on what looks like yet another batting strip. For, then he along with his new ball partners Tinu Yohanan (coming in for Dodda Ganesh and who didn't join the team in the nets as he arrived late in the afternoon) and L. Balaji can strike the early blows for the non-regular slow bowlers Hemang Badani and Sriram to complement their efforts.

Lack of a quality spinner can be a major handicap for South here. Incidentally, Sunil Oasis is the other change in the team that played the last match as he replaces the injured Vijay Bharadwaj.

On the other hand, East Zone's confidence level is on a new high after its nine-wicket demolition of West Zone. The presence of internationals Debashish Mohanty, Shiv Sunder Das, Devang Gandhi besides captain Rohan Gavaskar and other promising cricketers should make East look much better on the field than on paper.

"Batting is our strength and we hope to put up a much improved performance,'' says East Zone coach Jodh Singh. He is aware that only a win here would keep them afloat as it also has five points from two matches with a win over West Zone and a loss to North Zone.

Certainly, the cricket fans of Steel City can expect a high-scoring encounter which will also be telecast live on DD-Sports channel of Doordarshan network.

The teams (from):

South Zone: B.K. Venkatesh Prasad (capt), Hemang Badani, A.T. Rayudu, Rowland Barrington, N. Arjun Yadav, S. Sriram, S. Sharath, Y. Venugopala Rao, Fayaz Ahmed, L. Balaji, Tilak Naidu, Sandeep Dahad, Sunil Oasis and D. Vinay Kumar. Coach: T. Mahesh.

East Zone: Rohan Gavaskar (capt), S.S. Das, Sanjay Raul, S. Das, Utpal Chatterjee, M.S. Dhoni, Javed Jaman, Ranadev Bose, Devang Gandhi, S. Choudhary, Sukhwinder Singh, B.B.C.C. Mahapatra, Prabhanjan Mullick and R. Parida. Coach-cum-manager: Jodh Singh.

Umpires: Messrs Sudhir Asnani & Sanjeev Rao (both from Indore). Match referee: Mr. G.K. Raman (Mumbai).

Hours of play: 9.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.; 1.15 p.m. to till close of play.

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