Azharuddin to lead South Zone

Former Indian captain Md Azharuddin has gently protested against not being picked for the Indian team to tour Australia and at the selectors' attitude with regard to his non inclusion. He is confident he still has a couple of years of international cricket left in him. In the meantime, he is doing his best to run into form around domestic circuit. He had one notable knock in the Moin Ud Dowlah tournament and followed it up with a couple of good innings in the Ranji Trophy. Now the 36-year-old stylist from Hyderabad gets a further opportunity to prove to the selectors he is still good enough to play for the country. The South Zone selection committee which met in Chennai on Sunday named Azharuddin as captain of the South Zone team for the Duleep Trophy to be held in the East Zone from December 1.

Robin Singh (vice captain), S Sarath, JR Madanagopal, Ashish Kapoor and S Mahesh (all Tamil Nadu), Nanda Kishore, Venkatpathi Raju, NP Singh (all Hyderabad), LN Prasad Reddy and I Srinivas (Andhra), KN Ananthapadamanabhan (Kerala) and S Shiruguppi (wicketkeeper), Sunil Joshi, Mansoor Ali Khan and Thilak Naidu (Karnataka).

Hemang Badani (Tamil Nadu), Anand Yalvigi and A Vijay (Karnataka), N Madhukar (Andhra), Sreekumar Nair (Kerala), Daniel Manohar (Hyderabad) and V Kolambkar (Goa).

Those who attended the selection committee meeting were TA Sekhar (Tamil Nadu, chairman), GA Pratap Kumar (Andhra), Subash Kangralkar (Goa), Arshad Ayub (Hyderabad), AP Gopalakrishnan (Kerala) and B Vijayakrishna (Karnataka). Ashok Kumbhat, secretary, Tamil Nadu Cricket Association was the convenor.