“It’s a contest of equals,” said South Zone captain Subramanium Badrinath on the eve of the opening Duleep Trophy match against defending champions North Zone here at Motera. Badrinath’s statement captured the essence of the battle as both the teams have a formidable line-up with players in form, and both sides have lost a player each to Team India. If North Zone’s Gautam Gambhir has left to join the Down Under tour party, so has South’s S Sreesanth. But there are other proven performers in the two sides to make the contest a real treat. North have a deep batting line-up with Aakash Chopra, captain Mitthun Manhas and Shikhar Dhawan among the runs. The trio, with 1,951 runs among themselves, played a crucial role in guiding Delhi to the Ranji title. For South, Badrinath, Ravi Teja, Murali Vijay and Prasad Reddy are among the runs. Together, they had piled up 2,389 runs in the 2007-08 Ranji season. The bowling department seems to be the same. If South have Karnataka’s Vinay Kumar with 40 scalps in the recently-concluded Ranji Trophy, North have left-arm pacer Ashok Kumar Thakur of Himachal Pradesh with 35 wickets. So with the teams equally balanced, everything may boil down to the toss. With green-top in offering, both the captains would prefer to bowl first. Meanwhile, in Rajkot, a depleted Central Zone take on West.
