The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Andhra hopes for a good show

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Monday, Dec 13, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Andhra hopes for a good show

By Our Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM, DEC. 12. Andhra takes on Bengal in a Elite Group `A' Ranji Trophy match at the ACA-VDCA Stadium here from Monday without its captain M.S.K. Prasad rendered unfit.

An ankle injury he suffered in the match against Delhi has forced Prasad to pull out of this match, though he played in the previous match against Karnataka. Andhra has included the young V. Manoj Sai in the place of Prasad in the team.

Y. Venugopala Rao will don the mantle of captaincy. Venugopla played well in the match against Karnataka, though Andhra lost the match, and the home ground advantage should make him and his team do better.

Andhra has only two points from four matches and a good show here should spur it to do well in the remaining two matches, both at home, says both the captain and the coach, K.S. Bhaskara Rama Murthy.

Bengal has four points from four matches, thanks to a win over Karnataka, and its coach, Karsan Ghavri, said that the team would first look for two points (first innings lead) in this match and then decide on going for an outright win. "We have to go all out and gain points", he said.

The teams:

Bengal (from): Rohan Gavaskar (capt.), Arindam Das, Deep Das Gupta, Nikhil Haldipur, Subhomoy Das, Lakshmi Ratan Shukla, Sanjeev Sanyal, Sourasish Lahari, Murtaza Lodgar, Sabir Ali, Ranadeb Bose, Anustup Majumdar and Ritam Kundu.

Andhra (from): Y. Venugopala Rao (capt.), Amit Pathak, R.V.Ch. Prasad, Y. Gnaneswara Rao, K.S. Shabuddin, Md. Faiq, L.N. Prasada Reddy, A.S.K. Varma, V.V.V. Appa Rao, D. Kalyan Krishna, A.G. Pradeep, B. Balaji Kishen Singh, A.G. Praveen and V. Manoj Sai.

Umpires: R.T. Ramachandran and Vijay K. Chopra Match referee: J.C. Umrigar (Mumbai).

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