Diwakar to lead East Zone Academy side

kolkata: a 13-member east zone academy side -- led by mihir diwakar of bihar -- for the inter-zonal cricket academy tournament for hemu adhikari trophy, scheduled to be held in bangalore, was announced here, wednesday evening. the side includes six players from bengal, four from orissa, two from tripura and one from bihar. former bihar player and one of the assistant coaches at the east zone academy, randhir singh, will accompany the side as coach-cum-manager, while dr vece paes will be the fitness consultant. one player each from bihar, orissa and tripura has also been picked to represent the combined academies' side that will also feature in the june 28 to july 3 tournament. the players will leave on june 24. east zone will open their campaign in the competition with a match against south zone on june 28. teams from the east, north, south, central and west zonal academies and a combined academies side, will be divided into two groups and a round-robin league format will be followed in the two groups. the champion team from each group will meet in the final on july 2. a match between the national cricket academy (nca) outfit and the combined academies side will take place on july 3. according to a cricket association of bengal (cab) source, the entire exercise will be undertaken keeping the 2002 under-19 world cup in mind. east zone academy side: mihir diwakar (bihar) -- (capt.), niranjan behara (orissa) -- (vice-captain), ritesh jaiswal (bengal) -- (wicket-keeper), ajay gharai (bengal), abhishek chakrabarty (bengal), subid biswal (orissa), rakesh mohanty (orissa), avik chowdhury (bengal), rajesh banik (tripura), tushar saha (tripura), gaurav sharma (bengal), sourav sarkar (bengal) and bighnesh mohanty (orissa). coach-cum-manager: randhir singh; fitness consultant: dr vece paes. combined academy players from east: sheikh jahangir (orissa), jayanta debnath (tripura) and ajit singh (bihar). fixtures: june 28: east v south, north v west; 29 june: west v central, east v combined; june 30: south v combined, north v central; july 2: final; july 3: nca v combined academies.