Title with North, race on for second spot

None of the captains or Board of Control for Cricket in India selection committee chairman Chandu Borde are sure of the nature of the wicket.‘‘The ground staff did not get enough time to prepare the wicket. In whatever little time they had at their disposal, they have done their best, said Borde. Although, the tie is only of academic interest, Borde sounded a warning for the players. The performance in the tie will be looked into,’’ he says.

The two skippers, Tendulkar and Shiv Sunder Das (East), have in identical opinion on the wicket.

‘‘We want to win,’’ said Tendulkar, who is playing his first four-day match this season. ‘‘It looks alright. Probably tomorrow morning we will be in a better position to tell about the wicket, as the finishing touches are still awaited, added Tendulkar.

With Saurav Ganguly’s appearance still uncertain, Das pins hope on his main bowler Debashish Mohanty, who took ten wicket in their last match against South Zone, and over 45 wickets in his six outings this season.

Teams
West Zone:Sachin Tendulkar (cap), Nayan Mongia (w-k), Wasim Jaffer, Conor Williams, Jacob Martin, Vinod Kambli, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Abhijit Kale, Niraj Patel, Sairaj Bahutule, Iqbal Siddiqui, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Prashant Joshi, Rajesh Pawar. Manager: Rajendra Shah.

East Zone: Shiv Sunder Das (cap), P Jaichandra, R.R. Parida, Sanjay Rahul, Rohan Gavaskar, Zakaria Zuffri, Sukhbinder Singh, Utpal Chatterjee, Debashish Mohanty, J. Zamir, Das Gupta, Mrinal Gupta, Ganesh Kumar, Mihir Divakar, M.S. Dhoni. Manager: Pravan Roy