The murky weather, a freshly laid pitch and the scheduled selection committee meeting on Monday afternoon to pick the squad for the first two Tests against South Africa are sure to play on the players’ mind when Central Zone take on a formidable North Zone in the second round of the inter-zonal one-day tournament for the Deodhar Trophy here at the Chinnaswamy stadium.

In either sides there are quite a few players who will be anxiously waiting to hear the good news coming out of the Monday meeting, though the performance in the match itself will have little bearing in their respective prospects. Barring a fiasco in the first match on Friday when West Zone were shot out for a measly 98 by Central, one can hope for an absorbing contest. 

Central looked obviously on a high after their almost clinical performance in their opener but coach Abhay Sharma said the emphatic victory is in the past. “We are not thinking of that match at all. North are a strong side and we can’t go into the match thinking of our previous win,” he said during their team’s practice session.
Central bowlers, given an opportunity to exploit the lively pitch and overcast conditions in their opener, set the base for a comfortable win. Right-arm medium pacer Praveen Kumar -- away in Lucknow to receive an award and expected to be back here on Sunday night -- and left-arm paceman RP Singh operating with the new ball and backed-up by the spin duo of left-arm spinner Murali Kartik and leggie Piyush Chawla, Central bowlers once again hold out a major threat to rival camp, even if it has players of the proven calibre of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir to name just a couple.    
  
Batting domination     
While the pitch looks good enough to keep the pacemen interested for a considerable amount of time in the morning, with little application the batsmen can hold sway over the bowlers. In this backdrop it would be interesting to see what the skipper winning the toss would want to go for first.   

North arrived late on Sunday afternoon sans their skipper Sehwag and opener Gambhir after their flight was delayed by over four hours. Despite the tedious journey, North trooped out on to the KSCA ‘B’ ground to catch up with some practice. North will have to get their act quickly right when they take on a confident Mohammad Kaif’s side. Major names missing from the North team are Punjab duo of Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh, pacemen Ishant Sharma and VRV Singh.

On the face of it and on the evidence of the previous match, it looks like a battle between Central bowling versus North batting. One, however, can’t discount Central’s batting and North’s bowling.

With the likes of Kaif, Suresh Raina, Naman Ojha and a clutch of all-rounders, Central boast an impressive batting line-up if not formidable. On the other hand, North, in their bowling department, have under-19 World Cup star and left-arm paceman Pradeep Sangwan, medium pacer Rajat Bhatia -- who was highly successful during the Ranji Trophy -- and leg-spinner Amit Misra. Not to mention the off-spin option of Sehwag himself.    

Teams (from):
Central Zone: Mohammed Kaif (capt), Murali Kartik, Suresh Raina, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Tanmay Srivastava, Faiz Fazal, Praveen Gupta, Sandeep Singh, RP Singh, Deepak Yadav, Naman Ojha (wk), Himalaya Sagar, Ravi Jangid, Rajesh Kanojia, Rohit Sharma. Coach: Abhay Sharma.

North Zone: Virender Sehwag (capt), Gautam Gambhir (vice-captain), Udey Kaul (wk), Aakash Chopra, Shikar Dhawan, Yash Pal Singh, Virat Kohli, Pradeep Sangwan, Pavan Dogra, Vishal Bhatia, Rajat Bhatia, Manpreet Gony, Amit Misra, Sanjay Badhwar, Vikramjit Mallik. Coach: Anuj Pal Das.

Umpires: Vinayak Kulkarni, Shavir Tarapore (both Karnataka); Match referee: Raju Mukherjee (Bengal); Umpires coach: BA Jamula (Mumbai).

Hours of play: 0900 to 1230 hours; 0115 to 0445 hours.