The South Zone and West Zone players will face each other with the common goal of winning the Duleep Trophy in Bengaluru from Wednesday.
West Zone have been the most successful team out of the two, appearing in 34 finals in all and winning 19 of them.
South, who have 13 titles to their name, will look to impede West Zone's progress and win a 14th trophy for themselves. Both teams had met in the final last year, too, with South Zone losing to the Ajinkya Rahane-led team at the time by 294 runs.
All eyes will again be on Cheteshwar Pujara, who was dropped from India's Test team for the upcoming West Indies tour, in favour of young players.
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The Saurashtra batter had struck a match-winning 133 against Central Zone in the semi-finals giving West yet another chance at the title.
Eyeing another comeback into the national team, Pujara will want to go big in the final, too. A veteran of 103 matches for the national team, he will work as a pathway for many others from both teams.
Mayank Agarwal, captain of South Zone, has scored heaps of runs in the domestic circuit this season. He will be one of the key players for South if they are shatter West's dream of adding another title to their trophy case.
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For West, the pair of Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan has struggled, but they will get captain Priyank Panchal's backing nonetheless, thanks to the impressive numbers they have put in domestic cricket.
Tilak Varma, who was recently named in India's T20 team for the West Indies tour, will be eager to show is skills in red-ball cricket.
These, however, are players who will be in the limelight. Others such as R Sai Kishore, Sai Sudharsan, Vysakh Vijayakumar, etc. will be self-motivated to grab more eyeballs on them than what they currently have.
That jostle over the next five days will be an intense watch.
Teams: South Zone: Hanuma Vihari (captain), Mayank Agarwal (vice-captain), Sai Sudharsan, Ricky Bhui (wk), R Samarth, Washington Sundar, Sachin Baby, Pradosh Ranjan Paul, Sai Kishore, V Kaverappa, V Vyshak, KV Sasikanth, Darshan Misal, N Tilak Varma.
West Zone: Priyank Panchal (captain), Cheteshwar Pujara, Suryakumar Yadav, Harvik Desai (wk), Prithvi Shaw, Het Patel (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Arpit Vasavada, Atit Seth, Shams Mulani, Kedar Jadhav, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Chintan Gaja, Arzan Nagwaswalla.
Match starts at: 9.30 AM IST.
