Karnataka further denuded by Srinath's withrawal
Hosts Karnataka square off against Hyderabad in their Ranji Trophy semifinal at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore tomorrow minus their frontline paceman Javagal Srinath who has still not recovered from the groin injury that he sustained in Sharjah
Sankhya Krishnan
10-Apr-2000
Hosts Karnataka square off against Hyderabad in their Ranji Trophy
semifinal at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore tomorrow minus their
frontline paceman Javagal Srinath who has still not recovered from the
groin injury that he sustained in Sharjah. Karnataka are already
without the services of Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble on account of
their county commitments in England.
In contrast, all hands are on deck for the Hyderabad team as
Mohd. Azharuddin returns to the venue where he scored a Test hundred
against South Africa earlier in the season. Coach Arshad Ayub
indicated that Azhar would replace Arjun Yadav from the quarter final
side that beat Uttar Pradesh in Kanpur. A mild drizzle around 4.40 in
the evening interrupted Hyderabad's workout in the nets, and brought
the covers quickly on, but the weather cleared soon enough for them to
resume.
The wicket has a healthy spread of green on it, perhaps in
anticipation of Srinath's presence, and has tempted Hyderabad to go in
for a third seamer in Fiaz Ahmed in addition to the regular new ball
duo of NP Singh and Parth Satwalkar. Karnataka has some capable
exponents to exploit the conditions as well in captain Venkatesh
Prasad, Dodda Ganesh and Mansur Ali Khan.
Hyderabad's batting and spinning departments are in no need of being
augmented however. Led by VVS Laxman (886 runs and six centuries in
the Ranji season so far) who has demonstrated time and again that he
has no peers in the domestic game and Nandakishore, with 784 runs of
his own, Hyderabad's batsmen are in ominous touch. The forgotten man
of Indian cricket, 40-year-old off spinner, Kanwaljit Singh, has
outstripped all comers with 55 wickets and forms a lethal combination
with Venkatapathi Raju.
In the absence of Dravid and Vijay Bharadwaj for most of the season,
opener Mithun Beerala has been Karnataka's driving spirit with the
bat, running up 543 runs at almost fifty. Bharadwaj, who made a record
1280 runs last season, has all of 42 runs this time round, from one
match, but his return should bring some stability to an inconsistent
batting lineup.
Two years ago Karnataka and Hyderabad played out a splendid semifinal
match which Karnataka won by one wicket. With many of the same
protagonists in action again, there should be no shortage of drama on
this occasion too.
The teams:
Hyderabad: M Azharuddin (captain), A Nandakishore, Youraj Singh, VVS
Laxman, Vanka Pratap, D Vinay Kumar, Kanwaljit Singh, Daniel Manohar,
NP Singh, Venkatpathi Raju, JS Yadav, P Satwalkar, R Sheikh, Raghuram,
Anirudh Singh and MF Ahmed
Karnataka: Venkatesh Prasad (captain), J Arun Kumar, MR Beerala, RLK
Barrington, Vijay Bharadwaj, SB Joshi, D Ganesh, VST Naidu, B Akhil,
SK Vadiaraj, A Vijay and MA Khan.
Umpires: Sekhar Chaudhuri (Bengal) and BA Jamula (Mumbai)