Reigning champions South Zone have an onerous task of defending their title when they take on an equally strong North Zone in their last league match for the Deodhar Trophy here tomorrow. The tournament is now interestingly poised with South and North having nine points each from their two wins and a defeat. TEAMS North (from): R S Sodhi (capt) Aakash Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Mithun Manhas, Amit Bhandari, Sarandeep Singh, Pankaj Dharmani, Ajay Ratra, Amit Sharma, Sangram Singh, Joginder Sharma, Amit Unyal, Navdeep Singh, Yashpal Singh. South (from): Venkatesh Prasad (capt), A T Rayudu, Rowland Barrington, Arjun Yadav, Hemang Badani, S Sriram, Venugopala Rao, S Sharath, Tilak Naidu, Dodda Ganesh, L Balaji, Vijay Bharadwaj, D Vinay Kumar, Sunil Oasis, Sandip Dahaa. Umpires: T K Handu (Pune), B A Jamula (Mumbai). Match referee : Prof R S Rathore (Udaipur). West, with eight points from two wins, have not only to win their last match against Central in Kochi tomorrow but secure a bonus point to upset the chances of both South and North. In all counts, both the matches will prove to be battle of nerves, as all the three teams — South, North and West — will be pressing for victory.If West win with a bonus point and either South or North fail to secure a win with bonus point, a two-way tie will ensue and the one-day rule quotient will be employed.
