East Zone scent victory against South Zone
At the end of another eventful day, East Zone were scenting victory in their Duleep Trophy match against South Zone at the Maharaja Bir Bikram College Stadium in Agartala on Friday
Staff Reporter
26-Jan-2001
At the end of another eventful day, East Zone were scenting victory in
their Duleep Trophy match against South Zone at the Maharaja Bir
Bikram College Stadium in Agartala on Friday. Eleven runs behind on
the first innings, South Zone were all out for 177 in their second
knock. Requiring 167 runs for victory, East Zone were 71 for two at
stumps. With only 96 runs more required and eight wickets in hand,
they must start the third day as favourites.
Resuming at three for no loss, South Zone were again rocked by
Debasish Mohanty who dismissed both openers Sridharan Sriram (14) and
A Nandakishore (18) with only 42 runs on the board. However, South
Zone's fortunes were, for a short while, in the safe hands of Rahul
Dravid and VVS Laxman. The two India stars added 67 runs for the third
wicket off 18 overs and at 109 for two, South Zone seemed poised for a
challenging total. However Assam left arm spinner Sukhbinder Singh had
Laxman caught and bowled for 40 and there was precious little
substance in the South Zone batting thereafter. Laxman faced 66 balls
and hit seven fours.
Mohanty came back to dismiss Vijay Bhardwaj (1) for his 13th wicket of
the match. Sukhbinder then had VST Naidu leg before for eight. Sunil
Joshi became the third successive lbw victim when he was dismissed by
Mohanty. Aashish Kapoor and Javagal Srinath were dismissed off
successive deliveries from Sukhbinder and South Zone had slumped to
138 for eight.
Dravid was holding one end up and he now found an able partner in WD
Balaji Rao with whom he added 35 runs for the ninth wicket off eight
overs. However Sukhbinder brought the innings to a swift end when in
one over he had the wickets of Dravid and Venkatesh Prasad. Dravid,
who batted a shade over three hours for 66, faced 143 balls and hit
eight of them to the ropes. But the chief honours were claimed by
Sukhbinder who finished with six for 57. Mohanty's bag of four for 45
gave him a match haul of 14 for 91.
East Zone required only a modest target but were rocked by Indian
pacemen Srinath and Prasad. While P Jai Chandra was bowled by Prasad
for three, RR Parida was bowled by Srinath for a duck. East Zone were
in trouble at eight for two. But Indian opener Shiv Sundar Das and
Sanjay Raul weathered the storm with an unbroken third wicket
partnership of 63 runs off 29.3 overs. By close, Das was batting on 49
compiled off 108 balls with seven fours. Raul was on 15.