The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : West Zone eyes runner-up spot

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Wednesday, Mar 26, 2008
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West Zone eyes runner-up spot

Principal Correspondent

Agarkar-led West has a potent
seam attack
South has shone
in patches

Bangalore: Central Zone has already secured the Deodhar Trophy and for the remaining teams there is nothing much to play for except pride in their final round matches. However, for West Zone (9 pts), the runner-up tag would be a welcome addition as it aims for victory against host South Zone (3) in the match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Wednesday. East (5) which will clash against North at Vishakapatnam is the other contender for the second spot but it all depends on the team pulling off a victory with a bonus point and West losing in Bangalore.

West, after stumbling against an R.P. Singh inspired Central in their opening round, notched up successive victories over East and North while South lost to East and Central before defeating North to regain some confidence.

The Ajit Agarkar-led West has a potent seam attack with Munaf Patel and Siddharth Trivedi assisting the captain and with the added presence of Rohit Sharma, Parthiv Patel and allrounder Yusuf Pathan, the visitors do have a strong outfit.

South meanwhile has performed in patches — Robin Uthappa batted well against North but captain S. Badrinath has struggled for runs and needs to fire on Wednesday.

The South attack led by local lad Vinay Kumar and with talented left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha in its ranks needs to strike but the bowlers surely would want their batsmen to chip in with some runs.

With Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman being away on National duty, the remaining batsmen need to plug the gaps.

The teams:

South Zone: S. Badrinath (captain), Arjun Yadav (vice-captain), Bharath Chipli, Robin Uthappa, Gnaneshwar Rao, Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), M. Vijay, R. Vinay Kumar, Kalyan Krishna, Sarvesh Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, C. Raghu, Vidyuth Sivaramakrishnan, Saurav Bandekar and Abhinav Kumar. Coach: Vivek Jaisimha.

West Zone: Ajit Agarkar (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel (wicket-keeper), Venugopal Rao, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Mohnish Parmar, Iqbal Abdulla, Munaf Patel, Sandip Maniar, Siddharth Trivedi, Kedar Jadhav and Pinal Shah. Coach: Surendra Bhave.

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