Mongia to lead West Zone in Deodhar Trophy

Nayan Mongia may be out of the Indian team but he has resolved to fight his way back. He gets a chance to show that he still deserves a place in the side when he leads the 15-member West Zone team in the Deodhar Trophy limited overs tournament to be held at various centres in the West Zone from January 19 to 31.

The squad, chosen by the zonal selectors with national selection committee chairman Chandu Borde at the helm, has six players from Mumbai, four from Baroda, two each from Maharashtra and Saurashtra and one from Gujarat.

West play North at Rajkot in their opening round robin match on January 19 and then meet South at the same venue on January 22. Their next match is against East at Ahmedabad on January 28 and they wind up their fixtures with a game against Central Zone at Mumbai on January 31.

The team: Nayan Mongia (captain), Conner Williams, Ajit Bhoite, Zaheed Khan (all Baroda), Wasim Jaffer, Amol Muzumdar, Jatin Paranjpe, Vinod Kambli, Paras Mhambrey and Nilesh Kulkarni (all Mumbai), Abhijit Kale, Iqbal Siddiqui (both Maharashtra), Sitanshu Kotak and Hitesh Parsana (both Saurashtra) and Nilesh Modi (Gujarat).

Uttar Pradesh all rounder Gyanendra Pandey will lead Central Zone in the Deodhar Trophy tournament. The 16-member team, announced by the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association secretary Jyoti Bajpai consists of six players from Madhya Pradesh, four from UP, three from Rajasthan, two from Railways and one from Vidarbha.

The team: Gyanendra Pandey (captain), Manoj Mudgal, AW Zaidi, Jyoti Yadav (all UP), Gagan Khoda, P Krishnakumar and Anshu Jain (all Rajasthan), Sanjay Bangar, Murali Karthik (both Railways), Devendra Bundela, Harvinder Sodhi, JP Yadav, Amay Khursasia, Raja Ali, Abbas Ali (all MP) and Pritan Gandhe (Vidarbha).