da fazobetai： The South Zone wing of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) had somegood news as Deepak Chougule was chosen for higher honours and draftedinto the main centre of the NCA at Bangalore
Staff Reporter09-May-2001The South Zone wing of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) had somegood news as Deepak Chougule was chosen for higher honours and draftedinto the main centre of the NCA at Bangalore. Chougule, an attackingyoung batsman from Karnataka has moved to Bangalore after head coachof the South Zone academy Syed Kirmani received communication to thateffect from Bangalore. Chougule has been replaced at Chennai byKarnataka left arm seamer Steve Lazarus.The inclusion of Lazarus has caused some consternation as he was notin the stand-bye list earlier selected. The left armer played forSouth Zone in a warm up game against the touring England Under-19 teamrecently. In that game Lazarus impressed with some sharp spells,scalping the wicket of the dangerous Nicky Peng early on.Chougule meanwhile has already made a bit of a name for himself inIndian age group cricket. Scoring a breezy 97 against England Under-19at Chennai, Chougule caught the eyes of scribes all around. Nostranger to big scores, Chougule once tonked 400 not out in a singleday for Karnataka against Goa in an Under-13 match in 1996-97 inChennai. That effort still stands as a junior world record.Earlier, when Karnataka off spinner Mulewa Dharmichand and Andhrabatsman Gnaneshwara Rao were shifted from the South Zone academy tothe main centre, they were replaced by standbyes Nalini Reddy and DTamilkumaran. Since this was as already established as a practice, itcomes as a surprise that the three remaining stand-byes wereoverlooked. NK Aneesh Kumar, Sachin Shetty and Hareish Raza might havereason to feel hard done by as they have been overlooked when anopening came up.Ashok Kumbhat, the secretary of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association wasnot impressed with the decision to overlook the stand-byes and call inLazarus. “It is only fair that one of the boys from the stand-bye listgot a chance,” said Kumbhat to a newspaper in Chennai. The list ofstand-byes was drawn up in a junior selection committee earlier.