Wills Trophy takes on added significance

The 23rd edition of the Wills Trophy, India's premier domestic one day championship, begins tomorrow with three quarter final matches at different southern venues. The seven teams in the fray include the five winners of last season's zonal one day leagues (Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Mumbai, Bengal and Punjab), the Board President's XI and the Wills XI.

Mumbai run into the Board President's XI led by Mohammed Azharuddin at Bangalore. Although Mumbai will miss the flair of Vinod Kambli, who has opted out due to personal reasons, their batting still packs a punch with proven performers like Amol Mazumdar, Jatin Paranjpe, Amit Pagnis and in particular Wasim Jaffer who's pushing hard for selection to the problematic opening spot in the national side. India discards Paras Mhambrey, Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj Bahutule make for a nagging bowling line up as well. The Board President's XI is generously endowed in the bowling department with Thiru Kumaran and Ashish Nehra opening the proceedings and Murali Kartik and Ashish Kapoor forming the second line of attack. Their batting leans heavily on the silken skills of Azhar, whose blade could land the five wise men in an embarassing quandary, and Tamil Nadu stars Sridharan Sriram and Sridharan Sharath.

Another man who has a lot to prove, Ajay Jadeja, leads the Wills XI against Karnataka at Hyderabad. Smarting at being left out of the C&U squad, he will be keen to display his ailing shoulder before close scrutiny. He adds a touch of dash to a batting order that includes Virender Shewag, Gagan Khoda and Ashu Dani. Saurashtra's Sitanshu Kotak has however opted to put 'team before self' and turn out instead for his side against Baroda in their Ranji match at Rajkot to see them through to the knockout. Amit Bhandari and Robin Singh jr. form a nippy new ball pair and Gyanendra Pandey provides the spinning alternative. Karnataka suffer from a transfer of riches to the national side but even without star value they still make up for a strong all round side. The winner will take on holders Madhya Pradesh (who have received a bye) in the semis.

Bengal and Punjab clash in another quarterfinal at Chennai which promises to be evenly matched. Punjab will have to do without three regulars Reetinder Sodhi, Yuvraj Singh and Ravneet Ricky, who are all away in Colombo for the U-19 World Cup but Pankaj Dharmani, Vikram Rathod and Dinesh Mongia still make for a respectable batting order. The return of Harbhajan Singh should inspire some confidence in their bowling too. The Bengal players to look out for are Laxmi Ratan Shukla, who sprang to notice with a matchwinning 136 not out in the same competition last season as well as some standout performances with the ball. His career graph has gone downwards since then for no fault of his. The exciting leg spinning all rounder Wrichik Majumdar is another fine prospect. And Rohan Gavaskar and Nikhil Haldipur are the batting bastions.

The tourney assumes significance since Board secretary Jaywant Lele has held out the candy of a ticket to Australia for the C&U Series for those fortunate enough to catch the eye of the selectors. But Lele being Lele, it would be difficult to take any of his pronouncements seriously!