IND_RJI-S_REVIEW_08JAN94

The last of South Zone league matches start 8 Jan 94

T.N Vs Goa (T.N favored to win) Ker Vs Kar (Kar should win, but Ker has a chance) Hyd Vs A.P (Hyd should win).

Karnataka has lost its strike bowlers J.Srinath and A.Kumble for this match since they have to report for the training camp starting at Delhi on 10/Jan for the preparation against S.Lanka. A special request by Karanataka association to the cricket board (to have Kumble and Srinath join the camp after the Ranji match) was turned down. Also Kar would not have the services of J.Arunkumar who sustained minor injuries in an Auto accident. They have found an able replacement in Sharat Chandra Bhat who scored a 100 against T.N in the OD match. (Ofcourse, he contributed to the Kar loss by giving away 25 runs in one over.) Hyderabad is expected to win though Azhar and V.Raju are out. It will be captained by Arshad Ayub. With most of the batsmen in form they have little to worry about. Hyd should be through to the knockout. T.N has had their share of problems this season. The major problem has been loss of form of W.V.Raman. Also their regular player and in-form player S.Sharath has been missed due to injury. Their matches against Kerala (against whom they had a higher chance of winning and gaining points) and Hyd have been washed out. In the final match S.Sriram would not playing as he has been chosen to captain the U-19 Indian team. Kerala has played extremely well due to their captain A'Padmanabhan who has been prolific with wickets this season. He has also been supported well mby Suresh Kumar. Their batsmen like P.T.Subramaniam have performed well. They do fancy their chances against Kar and will be looking forward to a good game and win. AP and Goa, the less said the better. They have been the punching bag of the S.Z teams and Goa has lost all their matches.

Teams likely to qualify (as usual): Hyderabad, Karnataka and T.N with Kerala having an outside chance at the expense of Karnataka.