Chougule drafted into NCA, replaced by Lazarus in South Zone Academy
The South Zone wing of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) had some good news as Deepak Chougule was chosen for higher honours and drafted into the main centre of the NCA at Bangalore
Staff Reporter
09-May-2001
The South Zone wing of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) had some
good news as Deepak Chougule was chosen for higher honours and drafted
into the main centre of the NCA at Bangalore. Chougule, an attacking
young batsman from Karnataka has moved to Bangalore after head coach
of the South Zone academy Syed Kirmani received communication to that
effect from Bangalore. Chougule has been replaced at Chennai by
Karnataka left arm seamer Steve Lazarus.
The inclusion of Lazarus has caused some consternation as he was not
in the stand-bye list earlier selected. The left armer played for
South Zone in a warm up game against the touring England Under-19 team
recently. 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 in
Indian age group cricket. Scoring a breezy 97 against England Under-19
at Chennai, Chougule caught the eyes of scribes all around. No
stranger to big scores, Chougule once tonked 400 not out in a single
day for Karnataka against Goa in an Under-13 match in 1996-97 in
Chennai. That effort still stands as a junior world record.
Earlier, when Karnataka off spinner Mulewa Dharmichand and Andhra
batsman Gnaneshwara Rao were shifted from the South Zone academy to
the main centre, they were replaced by standbyes Nalini Reddy and D
Tamilkumaran. Since this was as already established as a practice, it
comes as a surprise that the three remaining stand-byes were
overlooked. NK Aneesh Kumar, Sachin Shetty and Hareish Raza might have
reason to feel hard done by as they have been overlooked when an
opening came up.
Ashok Kumbhat, the secretary of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association was
not impressed with the decision to overlook the stand-byes and call in
Lazarus. "It is only fair that one of the boys from the stand-bye list
got a chance," said Kumbhat to a newspaper in Chennai. The list of
stand-byes was drawn up in a junior selection committee earlier.