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. 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)