Karnataka who had won the championship in 1996-97 had failed to qualify for the knock-out stage the following season. But they did well to recover and regain the Ranji honours last year.

The champions began well this year by winning the Irani Trophy earlier this month.

The statistics and the advantage of home pitch gives Karnataka the edge. Karnataka will miss the services of Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Sunil Joshi who are playing for India and David Johnson who is injured.

The teams (from): Karnataka: Sujith Somasundar (Captain), J Arun Kumar, Vijay R Bharadwaj, A Vijay, HT Girish Rao, Fazal Khaleel, Somashekar Shiraguppi, Anand Katti, B Akhil, DS Ananth, Mansoor Ali Khan, Dodda Ganesh, Anand Yalvigi, Rajashekar Shanbal.Manager:

B Raghunath.

Andhra: Amith Pathak (captain), H Ramkishen (vice captain), N Madhukar, RV Ch Prasad, V Nagini Kumar, Y Venugopala Rao, I Srinivas, Madhusudan Raju, GVV Gopala Raju, Y Ranganath, LN Prasada Reddy, MSK Prasad, Mallikarjun Rao, KST Sai. Manager-cum-coach: MN Ravi Kumar.

Umpires: SC Gupta (Kanpur), Subash Mathur (Ghaziabad). Match referee: RS Rathore (Udaipur).

Delhi take on Services

NEW DELHI: Delhi, who paid the price for complacency in their game against Haryana in the Wills One-day qualifier at Rohtak last week, take on Services in their North Zone league match at the Ferozeshah Kotla tomorrow.

With five wickets on hand and a few runs to reach 153, Delhi took things lightly. But for the single scored off the last ball, Delhi would have lost the match.

Delhi are likely to field an unchanged team for the One-dayer which precedes the four-day game. Given the nature of the Kotla track, Nikhil Chopra who is in Dhaka, may be replaced by aseamer.

Teams: Delhi (from): Vijay Dahiya (captain), Ajay Sharma, Ashu Dani, Mithun Manhas, Virender Sehwag, Sumeet Dogra, Sandeep Angurala, Robin Singh, Amit Bhandari, Rahul Sanghvi, Akash Malhotra, Ashish Nehra.

Services (from): Chinmaya Sharma (captain), Narender Singh, Sarabjit Singh, Sanjay Verma, Pankaj Maitrey, Narender Singh, C D Thomson, Sanjay Sirsat, Arun Sharma, M V Rao, J P Pandey, Sanjeev Mishra, S Javed, A. Nadkarni, Dinesh Chauhan.

Umpires:

R Parthasarathy and I Sivaram (both from Secunderabad).

Match Observer: Ashok Saheba (Ahmedabad).

J&K yet to arrive

AMRITSAR: An element of uncertainity shadows the Punjab-Jammu and Kashmir One-day match to be played at the Gandhi Grounds tomorrow.

While Punjab, led by Vikram Rathore, had a net practice at the grounds, their opponents had not arrived till late this evening.