Date:17/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/17/stories/2008031759632100.htm

Sport - Cricket

West takes on East

Principal Correspondent

HYDERABAD: West Zone takes on East Zone in a crucial clash of the Prof. D.B. Deodhar Trophy limited-overs cricket tournament at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium (Uppal) here on Monday.

Fresh from its victory over South Zone at the same venue, the East Zone team is upbeat. On the other hand, West is determined to put behind the debacle against Central in its first match in Bangalore when it was bowled out for 98.

“That was a bad wicket. Here it looks pretty good. It should be a tough match and we fancy our chances better here,” West captain Wasim Jaffer said after a long session at the nets and inspection of the pitch on Sunday.

He is banking on his batting, which includes India star Rohit Sharma and Yusuf Pathan, to click in order to give his bowling attack of Ajit Agarkar and Munaf Patel and others to have a go at the East batsmen.

Plenty of runs

If the first match is of any indication, there should be plenty of runs for all those batsmen who are willing to stay at the crease and play the waiting game, a feature which was wonderfully exhibited by Rahul Dravid during his classy century, though in vain, the other day.

That the big guns are determined to prove a point or two to the National selectors ahead of the series against South African is also obvious by the fact that Sourav Ganguly too had a long session in the nets.

If East is to get going, a lot will depend on how the openers, Ganguly and Arindam Das, set the tempo. Fortunately for East, even after a dismal start, the young southpaw Saurabh Tiwari was equal to the task with some typical one-day strokes and is expected to be a key performer again.

The teams (from): West Zone: Wasim Jaffer (captain), Ajit Agarkar, Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Y. Venugopala Rao, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Manish Parmar, Iqbal Abdulla, Munaf Patel, Sandeep Maniar, Siddarth Trivedi, Kedar Jadhav, Pinal Shah.

East Zone: Laxmi Ratan Shukla (captain), Sourav Ganguly, Anustup Majumdar, Arindam Das, Manoj Tiwary, Ranadeb Bose, Wriddhiman Saha, Shib Shankar Paul, Ireash Saxena, Haladhar Das, P.R. Sinha, Saurabh Tiwari, Ishank Jaggi, Manish Vardhan, S.S. Rao, Dheeraj Goswami, S. Purkayasha.