Central progress despite Tiwary century

Central Zone 480 for 8 dec (Kaif 202*, Parvinder 113, Raina 98) drew with East Zone 290 (Tiwary 102*, Das 52)
Scorecard

Manoj Tiwary made a battling century but could not prevent East Zone from being eliminated from the Duleep Trophy after conceding the first-innings lead to Central Zone, who progressed to the semi-finals where they will face South Zone in Indore from Tuesday.

As on the first three days, bad light and fog ruled out play for several hours on Friday as well. It was only half an hour after lunch that play began on the final day, and East lost opener Arindham Das in the fifth over of the morning soon after he crossed his half-century. That brought in Manoj, who made his 11th first-class hundred to guide East's effort.

East had virtually no chance of overhauling Central's mammoth first-innings score of 480, and their best chance lay in not getting bowled out and advancing on the basis of a better run-rate than their opposition in the match.

However, those hopes melted away with a couple of triple-strikes from Central. Manoj watched as the middle-order trio of Ishank Jaggi, captain Saurabh Tiwary and Wriddhiman Saha fell in the space of eight deliveries - East slipping from 131 for 2 to 133 for 5. There was some resistance from Manoj and Dhiraj Goswami but East again lost three wickets in ten balls to hurtle towards the exit. Manoj remained unbeaten on 102 when last man Abu Nechim holed out to Suresh Raina off RP Singh to confirm Central's place in the last four.