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Tuesday, Jan 02, 2007
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Andhra takes on Delhi

Sports Reporter

VIJAYAWADA: With 12 points in its kitty, a confident Andhra placed next to Baroda (13 points) takes on Delhi (six points) in the Super League Group A Ranji Trophy match at Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium here on Tuesday.

Venugopala Rao-led Andhra silenced the critics by registering two outright victories over Haryana and Saurashtra and took two points each against Baroda and Karnataka by virtue of its first innings lead. "Some brilliant individual performances at crucial stages made us reach this position," said Andhra coach N. Madhukar.

The Vijayawada wicket looks full of runs and the toss is the key. "The strip is likely to deteriorate late and we have included Lakshman Kishore, a left-arm spinner in place of middle-order bat Arjun Kumar," said N. Madhukar.

Andhra may play three seamers — K S. Shahabuddin, Kalyan Krishna and P. Vijaya Kumar. L.N. Prasada Reddy, who has piled up 462 runs so far with one brilliant hundred, A.S.K. Varma, who has scored two centuries and skipper Y. Venugopala Rao boost the Andhra batting.

Outright win

For Delhi, with a bunch of talented players who represented India in various age groups, an outright victory here will bolster its chances. To beef up the pace attack, Ishant Sharma will join the team along with Virat Kohli and Ashish Nehra. "Though our batsmen - Aakash Chopra (one hundred), Mayank Tehlan (a double hundred), Rajat Bhatia (two hundreds) and Shikar Dhawan (one hundred), played exceptionally well this season, one dreadful show against Saurashtra spoiled our chances," said Delhi coach Chetan Chauhan.

Delhi is likely to play two seamers and three spinners for this match. "The wicket will break in the latter part of the game. There is nothing much for the pacemen," Chauhan said. Delhi made one change in the team bringing in Abhinav Bali in place of Rahul Sanghvi.

The teams (from):

Andhra: Y. Venugopala Rao (capt.), M. S. K. Prasad (wk), L. N. Prasada Reddy, A. K. S. Varma, RV. Ch. Prasad, K. S. Shahabuddin, D. Kalyan Krishna, B. Sumanth, Md. Faiq, P. Vijaya Kumar, Y. Lakshman Kishore, S. Arjun Kumar, M. Shashavali, V. Manoj Sai. Coach: N. Madhukar.

Delhi: Mithun Manhas (capt.), Aakash Chopra, Mayank Tehlan, Shikar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Rajat Bhatia, Puneet Bisht, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Amit Bhandari, Chetanya Nanda, Adtiya Jain, Ashish Malhotra, Sohial Sharma, Abhinav Bali. Coach: Chetan Chauhan.

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