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South will look to make amends

Special Correspondent

MUMBAI: Ranadeb Bose is a potent weapon in the East Zone ranks for the Duleep Trophy league tie commencing here on Sunday. The Bengal pace bowler, having overcome the frustration of being overlooked for the national squad, will test the South Zone batsmen’s skills at the first opportunity on a Wankhede stadium wicket expected to retain its sporting character.

Bose’s nine for 148 in last year’s Ranji final against the mighty Mumbai batting line-up was continuation of his consistent form with the new ball for Bengal that season. India opener Wasim Jaffer, established middle-order bat Amol Muzumdar and opener Sahil Kukreja were the specialist batsmen in his victims list then — a reward for accuracy in that crunch game.

Bose will be hoping to remind the selectors again of his worth, like Praveen Kumar’s eight-wicket haul in this season’s Ranji final at the same venue booked the Uttar Pradesh paceman a ticket for the tri-series in Australia. Orissa’s Basant Mohanty, Bengal teammate S.S. Paul and former India bowler Debasis Mohanty complete a competent East strike force.

South Zone and Karnataka pace spearhead Vinay Kumar was impressive in the opener against North Zone, though the batting, which caved in twice 157 and 211 in the two innings against North Zone, needs to show some spine for the side to remain in contention after the Ahmedabad defeat.

The priorities are clear, as far as skipper S. Badrinath is concerned.

Talking after nets, he said: “Basically, we did not get enough runs on the board. There was something for the bowlers in the wicket (in Ahmedabad) throughout, but we start afresh here and need to put that defeat behind us. To stay in the race we need to win this match.”

The teams (from):

South Zone: S. Badrinath (capt.), Ravi Teja, Murali Vijay, Swapnil Asnodkar, Thilak Naidu (wk), Arjun Yadav, L. Prasad Reddy, Raipi Gomez, Pragyan Ojha, R. Ashwin, P. Vijaykumar, N.C. Aiyappa, Vinay Kumar, Kalyan Krishna, S. Anish.

East Zone: Shib Sundar Das (capt.), Basanth Mohanty, Wriddhiman Prasanta Saha, Arindam Das, Niranjan Behera, Ranadeb Bose, Halhadar Das, Palash Jyoti Das, Arnald Konwar, Anustup Majumdar, Debasis Mohanty, Shib Sunder Paul, Shankar Rao, Tushar Saha, Manish Vardhan.

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