Deodhar Trophy Final Preview: West Zone Vs East Zone

Mumbai, Dec 2: Defending champions and hosts West Zone will have a clear edge over strong challengers, East Zone when the two teams meet in the day/night final of the Deodhar Trophy inter-zonal limited over competition at the Wankhede Stadium here tomorrow.

Even though East have scripted a more comfortable victory over last year's runners-up North Zone, winning by 52 runs in the first semi-final on November 30, West stunned front runners South Zone with a spectacular come from behind two-wicket triumph yesterday in the second semi-final.

West Zone have the home advantage, with the wicket prepared for the semifinal yesterday and to be used for the final also, not having the pace and bounce of the track that was made by the curator for the first two games of the tournament.

The home team possesses better all-round strength than East, which is highly dependent on captain Manoj Tiwary. With batting holding the key to the outcome, West's formidable depth in this department as well as the overall quality gives them a major advantage.

In the semifinal tie, West were down in the dumps but lapses in the field by South, who put down catches offered twice by hard-hitting top scorer Suryakumar Yadav and by growing-in-stature all-rounder Axar Patel, helped West advancing to the final.

Even in the absence of their two key batsmen - India stars Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane - West have strong batting line up with the likes of Ambati Rayudu and captain Yusuf Pathan in the top of the order. East, in comparison, depend heavily on Tiwary, who singlehandedly won them the semifinal with a sparkling and career-best knock of 151 against North.

They are certainly missing the all-round prowess and experience of the injured Laxmi Ratan Shukla. Shreevats Goswami promised much after opening the innings, but could not make his good start count, while the other batsmen, except Tiwary, flopped.

PTI