Deodhar Trophy 2023: Captains in focus as North, Central eye first win

After being routed of their respective Deodhar Trophy marketing campaign openers, North Zone and Central Zone will look to open their account once they face off on the Cricket Association Puducherry (CAP) Ground 2 right here on Wednesday.

While North should overcome the ignominy of registering the bottom workforce complete within the match’s historical past after being skittled out for 60 in opposition to South Zone, Central wants to choose up the items following a tame six-wicket give up to East Zone.

The batters from each groups will likely be underneath the scanner, notably Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) teammates and North and Central skippers Nitish Rana and Venkatesh Iyer, respectively. The India internationals solely managed scores of 4 and eight, respectively, and could have a leaf to take out of fellow KKR batter Rinku Singh, who struck a composed half-century in Central’s solely silver lining of its 207-run complete in its match on Monday.

What would compound the woes of the unsettled batting of either side is that they should deal with some high quality pacers in circumstances beneficial to swing and seam. While Central’s Shivam Mavi, Yash Thakur and Aniket Chaudhary went wicketless in opposition to East, the latter two had been economical and have reinforcements in Mohsin Khan and Akash Madhwal.

READ: Mounting a comeback: How Shivam Mavi fought accidents to earn India call-up

Similarly, North has the expertise of Sandeep Sharma and Rishi Dhawan on its aspect. Yudhvir Singh and Vaibhav Arora might come off the bench to bolster them.

Under forecasted overcast skies within the morning, the toss and the next opening hour might show to be decisive, simply because it was when Central openers Aryan Juyal and Madhav Kaushik might solely eke 26 runs in 10 overs in opposition to an East Zone assault that unerringly maintained its line and size. Moreover, seven of the ten wickets within the first innings on the venue had been picked by seamers as North East Zone was bundled out for 207 in opposition to West Zone.

Juyal had retired harm early in Central’s innings and could possibly be changed by Upendra Yadav, who saved wickets for the whole thing of the sport in opposition to East. Left-arm spinner Nishant Sindhu, the highest wicket-taker within the lately concluded ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup, might increase North’s spin arsenal, which includes Mayank Markande and Mayank Dagar.