It is yet another chance for the forgotten stars of Indian cricket to serve a reminder and the fringe players to come up with special performances to push themselves into reckoning. The timing of the Duleep Trophy — after the South African tour and the World Cup selection — may still invite some criticism.
Yet, the four-day Duleep Trophy semifinal between last year's finalist South Zone and Central Zone which gets underway at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on Wednesday can still be a huge opportunity to keep the cricketers in the limelight.
Hope, they say, is an eternal motivating factor. And this one big factor should be good enough to spur cricketers like South captain Subramaniam Badrinath or Central's fast bowler Pankaj Singh, who his captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar believes is doing everything right now to be close to getting a national call.
All praise
Aakash Chopra, one of the stars in Rajasthan's Ranji Trophy title-triumph this season, was all praise for the curator at the Barabati Stadium when Central staged one of the most remarkable comebacks, after conceding the lead, to knock out East Zone. And, the semifinal venue here might well be a different and difficult proposition for the bowlers given the nature of the soil.
Not long ago, Indian captain M.S. Dhoni made fun of the wicket for the first Test against New Zealand saying that there would have been no result even if the match were to go on for 10 more days.
HCA curator Y. L. Chandrasekhar hinted that he wanted to wipe off that image and would leave a greenish tinge on the wicket to help the bowlers too this time around. He is aware that all the handsome praise he earned was for preparing wickets more suited for shorter versions — one-dayers and the T20.
“Given the fact that the Indian team is playing right through the year, there is nothing called fag-end of the season. The onus is on us to keep performing,” said Badrinath to a query even while stressing that the semifinal should be a keen contest between two very good teams.
“I don't think whatever grass is left on the pitch is that threatening. It should be a good wicket for both batsmen and bowlers,” he said.
He also informed that fast bowler S. Sreesanth and opener Murali Vijay are not available for this match and their replacements would be left-armer Prashant Parameshwaran and Robin Uthappa.
Crucial toss
For his part, Central captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar too believes that the toss should not be a crucial one.
“All that matters is how well you play over the next four days. I am really happy that this match gives a huge platform for many players to come good,” he explained.
The teams (from): South Zone: S. Badrinath (capt.), Amit Verma, M. Gautam (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Abhinav Mukund, Manish Pandey, B. Sandeep, B. Sumanth, Robin Uthappa, S. Aravind, Shadab Jakati, Abhimanyu Mithun, Pragyan Ojha, A.G. Pradeep, Prashanth Parameshwaran and Vinay Kumar.
Central Zone: Hrishikesh Kanitkar (capt.), Deepak Chahar, Mohammad Kaif, Ashok Menaria, Naman Ojha (wk), Jalaj Saxena, R.P. Singh, Umesh Yadav, Devendra Bundela, Aakash Chopra, Murali Karthik, Mohnish Mishra, Pankaj Singh, Vineet Saxena and Akshay Wakhare.
Umpires: Brian Jerling (South Africa) & S.N. Bandekar. Match Referee: Sunil Chaturvedi.
