The Hindu : Agarkar raring to go on green strip

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 03, 2003

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Sport - Cricket

Agarkar raring to go on green strip

By Our Sports Reporter

HYDERABAD APRIL 2. With the Indian team for the Dhaka triangular tournament (from April 10) announced this evening, the motivation level of the players who felt they were in the reckoning and missed the bus is bound to be low.

And when the two teams — Shiv Sundar Das-led Elite-C and Hrishikesh Kanitkar-captained Plate-A clash in the four-day Duleep Trophy match at Gymkhana Grounds from Thursday, some of the familiar names cannot be faulted if the spring in their step is missing.

Such is the state of the premier domestic cricket tournament in the country that except the privileged few who have made it to the squad like the Agarkars, Patels and Kales, the others may just be going through the motions.

For the record, Plate-A took the lead against Elite-A and lost to Plate-B in its two matches. Elite-C grabbed the honours against Elite-A and conceded the same to Elite-B in the second encounter.

As usual, both teams will be focused on getting the first innings points.

Quite surprisingly, the Gymkhana pitch sported a few green patches today, prompting some of the Plate-A members to remark whether it was prepared with Ajit Agarkar in mind.

Though one is not sure whether the patches will remain when the match commences, for the side which takes first strike the first hour might well decide the course of the match.

Interestingly, Plate-A has in its ranks the wily leg-spinner Ananthapadmanabhan, a bowler familiar with the vagaries of the Gymkhana strip. If the Plate-A batsmen do their job well, he will have a big role to play along with Dodda Ganesh. For Elite-C, Agarkar will be itching to have a go at the batsmen on what looks a bowler-friendly wicket.

The teams:

Plate-A: Hrishikesh Kanitkar (capt.), Barrington Rowland, R. Jaiswal, Yashpal Singh, Deepak Chougule, Tilak Naidu, Sunil Joshi, Mandhar Phadke, Dodda Ganesh, J. Jobanputra, Faisal Shaikh, Joginder Singh, Anantapadmanabhan and Rajeev Kumar. Manager: C.M. Ashok Sekhar.

Elite-C: S.S. Das (capt.), S. Parab, Jyoti Yadav, Yere Goud, Abhijit Kale, Jacob Martin, Parthiv Patel, K. Parida, Nilesh Kulkarni, Amit Bhandari, S.K. Trivedi, Ajit Agarkar, N. Doru and Pankaj Dharmani. Coach-cum-manager: G.J.J. Raju.

Umpires: Messrs H.S. Sekhon and Umesh Kumar (Patiala); Match referee: Mr. R.V. Ramani (Tamil Nadu).

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