South have the edge over East Zone

If East’s Rohan Gavaskar joined the team after the practice session, five of the South players arrived here late at night from Mumbai. Curator Dhiraj Parsana said that Monday’s encounter would be played on a fresh wicket — adjacent to the one on which the game between Central and West was played. “The pitch would offer consistent bounce and the teams should score around 270-280,” he said

Not knowing how the pitch would behave despite Prasana’s prediction, the teams preferred to name their playing eleven tomorrow. “We will look at the pitch in the morning before deciding on the final eleven,” said East skipper Dasgupta.

Earlier, East got into the act around 10:30 a.m. — catch practice followed by a small match and then the regular net session. But why such a long session? “The idea is to get accustomed to the climatic condition here. We have not played a match for a long time and we want to get into the match mood before taking the field tommorow,” Dasgupta said.

“Tommorow’s encounter is going to be a crucial for everyone to prove themselves as selectors are here to watch the game,” Dasgupta added.

But when the South players trooped in for a session, their skipper VVS Laxman said,”We will have a light session.” South practised for well over an hour: 10 minutes per batsman was the time alloted and the bowlers were also given short spells at the nets.

But Laxman as skipper took a litter longer than the time allotted to each batsman. He was seen getting his basics right outside as he knocked the ball for 15 minutes before asking the bowlers to bowl at the nets. He batted until he got the flow of his bat corrected.

“For the past few months I have not been able to get a proper swing of my bat and that is what I have been working on. And I have been succesful in getting it right now,” Laxman told The Indian Express.

Going by the statistics, South have an upper hand over the East. The former have won the title seven times while the latter just on four occassions.