Since last year’s tour of England, Rudra Pratap Singh has matured from a young aspirant to one of India’s leading bowlers. However, a hamstring tear during the fourth Test against Australia in Adelaide put a temporary break to his further growth at the top level.

After clearing the fitness test at the National Cricket Academy nearly a fortnight ago, the Uttar Pradesh paceman will get a chance to test his fitness in a match situation when Central Zone take on defending champions West Zone in the opening clash of the Deodhar Trophy at the M Chinnaswamy stadium here on Friday.

Chairman of national selectors Dilip Vengsarkar and South Zone representative Venkatapathi Raju will watch the southpaw’s performance keenly ahead of picking the Indian team for the South Africa series on March 17. It is imperative for the pacer to come up with an intense show to prove that he is ready for top-flight cricket. It is also important from the national team’s point of view that Rudra Pratap fires on all cylinders in this tournament as two other pacemen have been under the grip of injury.

Zaheer Khan has ruled himself out of the South Africa series as he is yet to recover fully from a heel injury, and there have been fitness concerns surrounding Ishant Sharma.

Under scanner

Munaf Patel’s performance too will come under scrutiny as the Maharashtra paceman had an up and down one-day series in Australia, with his attitude on the field coming in for censure from several quarters. The paceman will perforce have to produce some telling spells to take the bigwigs into confidence as he eyes as Test recall.
West coach Surendra Bhave expressed satisfaction at Munaf’s stint at the nets and his fitness levels. “Munaf worked up some pace in the nets, though he had to hold back a bit due to a damp pitch which made batting difficult. His throwing was also pretty good. Most importantly, he looked keen on the field.”

Apart from the duo, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar will be eager to impress the mandarins with a good show that they expect will stand them in good stead in the future.

Central skipper Kaif exuded confidence that his side had the wherewithal to stand up against West. “It is important to start on the right note. We are confident of doing well here, and the presence of players like Praveen and Piyush is really helpful. These players have given UP cricket a fillip in the last couple of years and it is good to see them doing well on the international stage,” he said.

Setback

Central, however, suffered a setback after in-form batsman Tanmay Srivastava failed to recover from the hand injury sustained during the under-19 World Cup final in Kuala Lumpur. He will take nearly three weeks to recover. 

The late notification from the Board of Control for Cricket in India regarding the change in match timings took many by surprise. The tournament was originally scheduled as a day-night affair, but the BCCI decided to change it a day event, the announcement coming just on Wednesday evening.

To make the matters worse for the teams, they could not use the main stadium for practice, an IPL-related programme taking precedence.

Teams (from):

West Zone: Wasim Jaffer (capt), Ajit Agarkar, Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Venugopala Rao, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Mohnish Parmar, Iqbal Abdulla, Munaf Patel, Sandip Maniar, Siddharth Trivedi, Kedar Jadhav, Pinal Shah.

Central Zone: Mohammad Kaif (capt), Murali Kartik, Suresh Raina, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Faiz Fazal, Praveen Gupta, Sandeep Singh, RP Singh, Deepak Yadav, Naman Ojha, Himalya Sagar, Ravi Jangid, Rajesh Kanojia.

Umpires: Vinayak Kulkarni and Shahvir Tarapore. Match referee: Raju Mukherjee.

Hours of play: 0900-1230 hours and 1315-end of play.