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Sunil Joshi, Sharath lead South's fightback

By Our Special Correspondent

Sunil Joshi sweeps Rohan Gavaskar on the third day of the Duleep Trophy league match. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

DHARAMSHALA, FEB. 16. The flourish of Sunil Joshi and the finesse of S. Sharath combined to dash East Zone's hopes of making South Zone bat again.

Even then, their fighting 90-run seventh-wicket stand could not prevent East from inching closer to the decisive first innings lead in the Duleep Trophy league match at the Dharamshala cricket stadium here on Monday.

At stumps on the third day, South was 304 for eight in reply to East's 388. South's slim hope of overtaking East's tally rests on R. Ramkumar and N. P. Singh, who have so far put on 46 runs for the ninth wicket.

If South is in a precarious situation, its frontline batsmen should take all the responsibility.

Resuming at the overnight 93 for three, South slipped deeper into the hole following the soft-dismissals of M. S. K. Prasad, the in-form Y. Venugopal Rao, who looked impressive until he offered a low return catch, and S. Badrinath.

With South reduced to 159 for six in the over before lunch, the East camp, not to forget National selector Pranab Roy, had entertained hopes of stopping South under 239 and enforcing the follow-on.

But in the session that followed, Sharath and Joshi played correctly and ended the possibility of South batting for a second time in succession.

Joshi and Sharath adopted contrasting styles in helping their team's cause. But just when these left-handers looked set to put South on the right course, their departures in the space of nine runs, handed the advantage back to East.

Joshi took his chances and hit two sixes and six boundaries as he dominated this entertaining partnership to reach 51. The left-arm spinner was not scared to use the aerial route to get his runs.

He hoisted off-spinner Sourashis Lahiri and part-time left-arm spinner Rohan Gavaskar for sixes on either side of the sight-screen. He reached his half-century with a lofted straight-driven boundary but off the very next ball, offered a simple catch at point.

Sharath raised visions of scripting one of his innumerable rescue acts. Experienced enough to know what his wicket meant to the rival camp, Sharath cut out all adventurous shots and was content on staying in the middle. He did not miss any scoring opportunities and struck six boundaries during his 196-ball knock. Two runs short of his 50, Sharath failed to clear Mohanty at short mid-wicket. Had Sharath stayed on till stumps, South could have still nursed hopes of coming out stronger on the final day.

Among the East bowlers, off-spinner Sourashis Lahiri was the pick. He not only took the first two wickets to fall this morning but also kept the batsmen in check.

The scores:

East Zone — 1st innings: 388.

South Zone — 1st innings: R. Barrington c Kumar b Mohanty 15, S. Ramesh c Mohanty b Paul 57, S. Sriram (run out) 2; Y. Venugopal Rao c and b Lahiri 41, M. S. K. Prasad c Shukla b Lahiri 6, S. Sharath c Mohanty b Paul 48, S. Badrinath lbw b Chatterjee 9, Sunil Joshi c (sub.) V. Saravanan b Mohanty 51, R. Ramkumar (batting) 19, N. P. Singh (batting) 29, Extras (b-15, lb-2, nb-19) 27, Total (for eight wickets) 304.

Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-56, 3-90, 4-119, 5-130, 6-159, 7-249, 8-258.

East Zone bowling: S. S. Paul 34-11-72-2, Mohanty 20-5-49-2, Lahiri 30-11-61-2, U. Chatterjee 33-6-81-1, R. Gavaskar 7-1-24-0, L.R. Shukla 1-1-0-0.

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