V. V. S. Laxman

Vadodara: Out of favour V. V. S. Laxman, Zaheer Khan and Laxmipathi Balaji will have a golden chance to impress the national selectors when South Zone take on West Zone in the four-day Duleep Trophy league tie commencing here on Thursday.

The three, who were ignored by the senior selection committee when it chose the Indian team for the first two ODIs against Sri Lanka, will look to use the longer version of the game to showcase their wares at the Motibaug Palace ground. South, led by Laxman, would miss the services of veteran legspinner Anil Kumble, who has skipped the tie since he is recovering from an injury. He is replaced by Sreekumar Nair of Kerala.

West, with Sairaj Bahutule at the helm, would be depending on Zaheer to get at South’s top order which comprises an array of stroke-makers in Robin Uthappa, who impressed in the recent Challenger Trophy, Barrington Rowland, Laxman and Hemang Badani. The left arm pacer would have seam support from Munaf Patel.

Teams (from)

West Zone: Sairaj Bahutule (Capt), Dheeraj Jadhav, Satyajit Parab, Wasim Jaffer, Jacob Martin, Neeraj Patel, Parthiv Patel (Wk), Ramesh Powar, Munaf Patel, Sidharth Trivedi, Zaheer Khan, Akash Christian, Vinit Indulkar And Jaydev Shah.

South Zone: V. V. S. Laxman (Capt), Robin Uthappa, Swapnil Asnodkar, Barrington Rowland, Hemang Badani, Sridharan Sriram, Dinesh Kartik (Wk), Lakshmipathi Balaji, Sreekumar Nair, Ram Kumar, P Ojha, R Jesuraj, Anirudh Singh, Vinay Kumar and K S Shahabuddin.