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Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Sreesanth, Wasim Jaffer, Ajit Agarkar, Rohit Sharma, Pravin Kumar, Mohd Kaif and Suresh and many other national players will be descending on to Hyderabad to play limited overs one-day cricket matches this month - the Deodhar Trophy One-Day Cricket Tournament.
This year, the Deodhar Trophy involving the five zones - South, West, East, North and Central - is being played across India. Hyderabad will be hosting four matches, on 14th, 17th, 20th and 23rd March, at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium. Today, the 3rd match of the Hyderabad leg is being played between South Zone and Central Zone.
Central Zone is the favorite to win this match, and the tournament, too. The team has 10 points (including two bonus points) from the two games it has played, and is at the top of the table. Mohd. Kaif is the captain of the team, which also includes Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Praveen Kumar, R P Singh and Piyush Chawla, all international one-day players. Tanmay Srivastava, Naman Ojha, Faiz Fazal, Pankaj Singh, Himalaya Sagar, Praveen Gupta and Ravi Jangid are the other members of the team. Senior spinner Murali Karthik is suffering from an injury, and is a doubtful starter.
South Zone is led by Tamil Nadu's Badrinath, and has biggies like Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik and Sreesanth. Other members of this team are Arjun Yadav, Bharat Chipli, Gnaneshwar Rao, Vijay, Vinay Kumar, Kalyan Krishna, Sarvesh Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, Raghu, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan and Saurav Bhandekar. The team has yet to open its account in the tournament, having lost the only game it has played. It received a setback when the prolific batsman V V S Laxman injured his hand during the last match against East Zone, becoming unavailable for the rest of the tournament.
The match will be of 50 overs each side, and will be the platform for the selection of players for the South Africa series in India. The entry is free, and is limited. Please contact the Hyderabad Cricket Association at 2790-5676 for further details.
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