Deodhar Trophy final: West Zone hold upper hand over East Zone

Mumbai Defending champions and hosts West Zone will have a clear edge over strong challengers East Zone when the two teams meet in the daynight final of the DeodharTrophy interzonal limited over competition at the Wankhede Stadium here todayEven though East have scripted a more comfortable victory over last years runnersup North Zone winning by 52 runs in the first semifinal on November 30 West stunned front runners South Zone with a spectacular come from behind twowicket triumph yesterday in the second semifinal 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 tournamentThe home team possesses better allround strength than East which is highly dependent on captain Manoj Tiwary With batting holding the key to the outcome Westsformidable 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 hardhitting top scorer Suryakumar Yadav and by growinginstature allrounder Axar Patel helped Westadvancing to the finalEven 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 careerbest knock of 151 against NorthThey are certainly missing the allround 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 There is a distinct likelihood of East who won the championship last in 200304 season making a couple of changes by bringing in the more experienced Ishank Jaggi and Pritam Das into the playing eleven for tomorrows gameFourtime title winners East have a decent seam attack led by the Bengal duo of Ashok Dinda and Veer Pratap Singh Even the medium pace of swing bowler Biplab Samantray is expected to come in handy Shahbaz Nadeem and Saurasish Lahiri provide good spin options for East but the duo has to conquer the lack of paceand bounce on what promises to be another flat trackWests new ball attack meanwhile looked lightweight against South on the featherbed wicket with the lack of pace of Shardul Thakur particularly a worrying factorThe Mumbai player however made it up somewhat with some smart fielding and a whirlwind cameo in the end Third medium pacer Maharashtras Domnic Muthswami bowled well to his field and brought down the South runrate while Axar also bowled economically and these two would be expected to repeat their performanceBut the hosts bowling overall looks below par The team winning the toss is once again expected to insert the other side in to negate the dew factor in theevening that could make the ball wet and slippery for the fielding side East Zone coach Shiv Sunder Das expected a wellcontested game and hoped his top order batsmen will come up to the plate and support skipper TiwaryIt should be a good game We really played well in the semifinals against North We have a good side bowling wise Ashok Dinda and Veerpratap Singh bowled well Biplab Samantaray also bowled well along with the two spinners Manoj did exceptionally well It was a great knock 151 in in semis I hope we get contribution from Saurabh Tiwary and toporder That will be crucialThe former India Test opener said the team would wait and watch the amount of dew fall this evening Yesterday a lot of runs were scored West v South semifinal but I think with a daynight game the quotient might change because in the afternoon the bowlers might not get as much movement as in the morningBut night game should be interesting It depends on how much dew is there and that might be a bit of a factor If it is cloudy today evening then there wont be that much dew but we will see how it goes Das felt fielding could be a crucial factor We have to be disciplined and fielding will be crucial because I think that will be crucialIf we put up a good score and field well then that will be the difference tomorrow West batsman Ambati Rayudu who is part of the India ODI setup of late praised the batting of Yadav and Axar Patel who turned the semifinal against South upside down with their belligerent half centuries It was brilliant batting from Surya and AxarAnd Shardul too Winning games like this always boost a team and the rest of us will like to contribute tomorrow said Rayudu who scored a half ton to set up the successful run chase The Hyderbadborn player said his team was wary of rival captain Tiwarys abilities with the bat but was confident his team has a good chance to win the title for the fourth time on the trotHe is a brilliant batsman I am sure we have enough good players in our team as well If we can play as a team we have a very good chance to win the game I think I am a little bit more sensible now The shot selectionnot in the last game But I am definitely trying to get better he said to a question about his improvement asa player after representing the countryAsked about the tragic death of Australian batsman Phil Hughes following an injury in a Sheffield Shield game the 29yearold said he has played against the late player in the juniorlevel cricket onwards Rayudu described him as a good friend and the nicest Aussie he had come acrossWe have played against each other from the underage teams He was a great competitor from the younger days itself Its really sad He was always smiling off the field We are both similar in some ways Playing domestic underage games and trying to get into our national teams It was a common thread between us We have been good friends He was a tough competitor He was very friendly and you can say he was the nicest Australian I knewTeams fromEast Zone Manoj Tiwary captain Ashok Dinda Saurasish Lahiri Shreevats Goswami Virat Singh Saurabh Tiwary Kumar Deobrat Rahul Shukla Shahbaz Nadeem Ishank Jaggi Parvez Aziz Pritam Das Deepak Behera and Arvind SinghWest Zone Yusuf Pathan capt Ambati Rayudu vicecapt Smit Patel Sheldon Jackson Kedar Jadhav Ankit Bawne Suryakumar Yadav Akshar Patel Dhawal KulkarniShardul Thakur Rush Kalaria Dominic Joseph Deepak Hooda Shreyas Iyer Arpit VasavadaThe match starts at 2 30 pm