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HISTORY: The Deodhar Trophy is the main domestic one-day tournament, named after Professor DB Deodhar. A 50-over competition, like the Duleep Trophy it is played between the five zonal teams. But this time, the inclusion of a foreigh team (Zimbabwe) has made the event a six-side affair.
ROLL OF HONOUR (Season and winners):
1973-74: South Zone
1974-75: South Zone
1975-76: West Zone
1976-77: Central Zone
1977-78: North Zone
1978-79: South Zone
1979-80: West Zone
1980-81: South Zone
1981-82: South Zone
1982-83: West Zone
1983-84: West Zone
1984-85: West Zone
1985-86: West Zone
1986-87: North Zone
1987-88: North Zone
1988-89: North Zone
1989-90: North Zone
1990-91: West Zone
1991-92: South Zone
1992-93: East Zone
1993-94: East Zone
1994-95: Central Zone
1995-96: North Zone
1996-97: East Zone
1997-98: North Zone
1998-99: Central Zone
1999-2000: North Zone
2000-01: South Zone/Central Zone
2001-02: South Zone
2002-03: North Zone
2003-04: East Zone
2004-05: North Zone
2005-06: North Zone
2006-07: West Zone
2007-08: Central Zone
SQUADS FOR CUTTACK EDITION:
EAST ZONE: Manoj Tiwary (capt), Saurabh Tiwary (vice-capt), Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ranadeb Bose, Ashok Dinda, Natraj Behara, Halahadar Das, Rakesh Mohanty, Preetamjit Das, Ishank Jaggi, Deepak Sharma, Dhiraj Goswami, Tushar Saha, and Rana Dutta. Coach: Sameer Dighe.
ZIMBABWE: Prosper Utseya (capt), Hamilton Masakadza, Tatenda Taibu, Ray Price, Sean Williams, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Vusi Sibanda, Elton Chigumbura, Keith Dabengwa, Forster Mutizwa, Malcolm Waller, Graeme Cremer, Ed Rainford, Chris Mpofu, Tawanda Mupariwa.
SOUTH ZONE: S Badrinath (capt), Robin Uthappa (vice-capt), Srikkanth Anirudha, DB Ravi Teja, Arjun Yadav, Manoj Sai, R Ashwin, KP Appanna, Shoaib Ahmed, S Aravind, Yo Mahesh, Robin D’Souza, P Prasanth, Arun Karthik, Anoop Pai. Coach: Raghuram Bhatt.
WEST ZONE: Wasim Jaffer (capt), Parthiv Patel (vice-capt & wk), Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhavik Thaker, Kedar Jadhav, Siddharth Trivedi, Abhishek Nayar, Rakesh Solanki, Iqbal Abdulla, Harshad Khadiwale, Murtuja Vahora, Jitendra Patil, Kamlesh Makwana.
CENTRAL ZONE: Mohammad Kaif (capt), Piyush Chawla, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rajesh Bishnoi, Murali Kartik, Pankaj Singh, Dhiran Salvi, Rudra Pratap Singh, Umesh Yadav, Tanmay Srivastava, Jalaj Saxena, Ravikant Shukla, Naman Ojha (wk), Pranay Sharma, Murtaza Ali. Coach: Gyanendra Pandey.
NORTH ZONE: Mithun Manhas (capt), Rahul Dewan, Rajat Bhatia, Ravi Inder Singh, Uday Kaul (wk), Vikramjit Malik, Chetanya Nanda, Yashpal Singh, Siddarth Kaul, Samiullah Beigh, Akash Chopra, VA Indulkar, Virat Kohli, Yogesh Nagar, Pradeep Sangwan.
WHO WOULD WIN AT CUTTACK?
ZIMBABWE: The Zimbwe team turned in some much-improved performances in Bangladesh before whitewashing Kenya 5-0 in Nairobi, and that persuaded the selectors to name the unchanged squad.
SOUTH ZONE: South are missing six big names from the side that represented them in the Duleep Trophy: the batting will have to do without Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, M Vijay and Dinesh Karthik who are all part of the Test side for the New Zealand series. There is no L Balaji or Sreesanth to bolster the bowling either.
WEST ZONE: Jaffer leads a strong West batting which includes six of the top nine run-getters of the Ranji season. Besides Jaffer and Parthiv, the side includes the prolific Mumbai batsman Ajinkya Rahane, Saurashtra’s stars of the season, Ravindra Jadeja and Cheteshwar Pujara, Maharashtra’s Kedar Jadhav, and Gujarat’s Bhavik Thaker.
CENTRAL They are the defending champions. But this time Central Zone are certainly the underdogs.
EAST ZONE: The speciality of the team is that the selectors have chosen youngster Manoj Tiwari to lead the side ahead of many established and senior players. The selectors even did not include former Test opener Shiv Sundar Das and World Cupper Debasis Mohaty in the team.
NORTH ZONE: National duty for star players has made North Zone another weak side in the competition. They also have a new captain in Mithun Manhas.
