I love sticking my neck out. But to do so in predicting the winner of the Deodhar Trophy would be hazardous. So obviously matched are the two contestants South Zone and North Zone that I doubt whether anyone can predict the outcome of the match, to be played at Pune on Monday, with any certainty.

Technically of course it is not a final. The tournament has been played on a league basis but as things have worked out, the group clash will decide the champions of this year's competition. Both South Zone and North Zone have a record of two wins and one loss each and so it has become a straight contest for the trophy. North Zone beat East Zone and West Zone and lost to Central Zone while South Zone defeated East Zone and Central Zone and lost to West Zone.

As only to be expected, the batsmen of both sides have dominated on wickets tailor made for them. And the bat is likely to decide the outcome of the `final' too. South Zone's chief run getter has been the opening batsman from Karnataka J. Arun Kumar. He got two successive hundreds against East Zone and West Zone. And when he failed against Central Zone, South Zone still had a century maker in the Tamil Nadu left hander S Sarath. Skipper Md Azharuddin came good with a splendid 64 against Central Zone. Tamil Nadu medium pacer S Mahesh who has been promoted in the order to boost the scoring rate has also come good with a couple of breezy half centuries. And with A Nandakishore, S Sriram, Reuben Paul and Aashish Kapoor around, South Zone's batting has considerable depth.

With conditions loaded against them, the bowlers have struggled to take wickets but a line up of a trio of medium pacers in Dodda Ganesh, S Mahesh, T Kumaran, off spinner Kapoor and left arm spinner Sriram cannot be taken lightly. But the North Zone batsmen can take heart from the fact that the opponents have run up scores of 275 for 7 in 50 overs (East), 320 for 4 in 47.5 overs (West) and 272 for 4 in 50 overs (Central) against the South Zone bowling.

Not that North Zone will need to examine all this for encouragement. They only have to look at their own formidable batting line up to reckon that they have a chance in the final. Vikram Rathour, Ajay Jadeja, Mithun Manhas, Pankaj Dharmani and Virendra Shewag have all got half centuries. And as they proved when they staged a recovery against Central Zone, North Zone bat in depth with Dinsh Mongia, Minhas and Rahul Sanghvi all part of the latter half of the order. And if anything North Zone would seem to have the edge in bowling. Not only does a line up of Robin Singh, Amit Bhandari, Sanghvi, Jadeja and the in form Sharandeep Singh have enough variety, they also have the encouragement of being the only attack in the tournament to pick up a sizeable number of wickets. Against East Zone, Bhandari and Sharandeep picked up three each, while Robin Singh took three against West Zone and four against Central Zone. In addition, they remain the only side to bowl out an opposition when East Zone were dismissed for 166 in 44.5 overs. For South Zone only Kapoor got three wickets against East Zone. So finally the side which bowls better in unfriendly conditions could end up winning the trophy.

The other game at Mumbai between Central Zone and West Zone is inconsequential. About the only incentive is that the winner will avoid finishing in the cellar position in the final points table.

© CricInfo