The Hindu : MP starts favourite

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 16, 2003

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Sport - Cricket

MP starts favourite

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE April 15. Madhya Pradesh goes into its semifinal encounter against Punjab in the under-25 inter-zonal cricket tournament with a degree of confidence having prevailed over Mumbai, which put up a spirited fight.

Having had the measure of its rival on the first two days, MP bowlers wilted under a resilient fightback from Mumbai skipper Bhavin Thakkar, before finally entering the last four stage on the first innings lead.

The win should be morale-boosting, and with a couple of the top-order batsmen having had a feel of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium turf already, should play in MP's favour.

Off-spinner Amal Kokje too had a long stint as he showed good temperament in staying in the middle to enable wicketkeeper-batsman Rahul Bakshi to score his century.

Punjab, the North zone winner too, has some bright talent under the stewardship of Ravneet Ricky, who has been a consistent performer for some years now. Wicketkeeper Chandan Madaan, who performed well for India Under-19 World Cup squad last year, is an asset.

In the other semifinal, South Zone champion, Tamil Nadu is pitted against Bihar (East Zone), which cruised through with three convincing victories, at the Wheel and Axle Plant (WP) ground, about 30kms from the city. Captain Mihar Diwakar, M.S. Dhoni (wicketkeeper) and Sumit Panda are the three Ranji trophy players in the Bihar squad.

Tamil Nadu too, have a few Ranji and one-day specialists in the team led by R. Satish and on paper should be able to put it across Bihar.

The teams (from): Madhya Pradesh: Yogesh Golwalkar (capt.), Mudassir Pasha, Sachin Dholpure, Ashok Sharma, Mohnish Mishra, Amal Kokje, Yogendra Panchal, Rishi Yengde, Rahul Bakshi, Nitin Menon, Rajesh Kannojia, Siddharth Kapoor, Shantanu Pitre, Maninder Singh, Satish Kumar. Coach: Kirti Patel. Manager: Anant Purohit.

Punjab: Ravneet Ricky (capt.), Ankur Sondhi, Amit Behal, S.P. Singh, Sachin Sachdeva, Chandan Madaan, Sandeep Sanwal, Vipul Sharma, Harish Puri, Gaurav Gupta, Ishan Malhotra, Varun Mishra, Baljit Singh, Ankur Jhand, Gautam Mandora. Coach: Arun Sharma. Manager: Ravindu Verma.

Umpires: K. Murali and S. Lakshaman (both TNCA). Match referee: V. Vikramraju (KSCA).

Tamil Nadu: R. Satish (capt.), Jesu Babu Honeymen, Noosi Riaz, J. Hariesh, Vikram Mani, R. Prasanna, Abdul Malik, C. Ganapathy, Muthupandi, Vidyuth Sivaramakrishnan, Tamil Kumaran, Pramod Das, G. Vignesh, Bens Raj. Coach: S. Kedarnath. Manager: K. Sriram.

Bihar: Mihar Diwakar (capt.), M.S. Dhoni, Kamal Kumar, Roshan Kumar, Ratan Kumar, Sumit Panda, Santosh Lall, Mohit Goel, Sunny Gupta, S. Nadeem, Anil Kumar, Keshav Kumar, Sandip Vig, S.S. Rao. Coach: D.N. Das. Manager: Tarun Kumar Bose.

Umpires: Shahvir Tarapore (KSCA) and S.C. Gupta (UPCA).

Match referee: Dr. Ramababu Gupta.

Hours of play:

9.30 a.m. to 12 noon; 12.40 p.m. to 2.40 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.

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