Surat: After enforcing the follow-on on the back of a 213-run lead, Central Zone removed South Zone's five top order batsmen to gain the upper hand in the Duleep Trophy Group A league match at the Lalbhai Contractor Stadium here on Saturday.

Central maintained its superiority for the third day running, except for a determined innings by Sridharan Sriram. Sriram (94 batting, 185m, 102b, 10x4) is close to making a century, but South, which made 158 for five in 43 overs in the second innings, is still 55 runs short of making Central bat again.

Dinesh Kaarthick and Hemang Badani perished early. Harvinder beat Kaarthick in the air and off the wicket and flattened his off and middle stumps.

Crucial strikes

Harvinder, Sanjay Bangar and Sanjay Pandey had a lot of work to do in the first 90 minutes before the haze cleared. The dismissals of Kaarthick and Badani, to a superlative two-handed catch by Nikhil Doru at cover, were the first indications that South would be hard-pressed to avoid the follow-on and save the match.

Piyush Chawla flummoxed K. Sahabuddin with a googly and Arjun Yadav with a fastish flipper. Later in the day Chawla, after being punished by the broad blade of Sriram, had reason to celebrate beating Yadav fair and square once again.

Left-arm spinner Ramkumar swung his bat to strike meaty blows in front of the wicket to halt a first innings rout. He and L. Balaji put on a half-century stand before a fine fielding effort from the deep separated the pair.

The scores:

Central Zone — 1st innings: 478.

South Zone — 1st innings: R. Uthappa c Doru b Bangar 31, B. Rowland c Ojha b Harvinder 1, S. Sriram c J. Yadav b Chawla 13, D. Kaarthick b Harvinder 51, H. Badani c Doru b Bangar 34, A. Yadav b Chawla 22, S. Nair c Ojha b Pandey 13, K. Sahabuddin lbw b Chawla 15, R. Ramkumar c Ojha b Parida 42, L. Balaji (run out) 22, R. Vinaykumar (not out) 1; Extras (b-4, lb-4, nb-9, w-3): 20. Total (in 76.3 overs): 265.

Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-50, 3-50, 4-129, 5-149, 6-173, 7-198, 8-207, 9-258.

Central bowling: Harvinder 17-2-49-2, Pandey 13-2-37-1, Bangar 12-5-22-2, Chawla 16-1-62-3, Parida 13.3-2-54-1, J. Yadav 1-0-5-0, Bundela 4-0-28-0.

South — 2nd innings: R. Uthappa lbw b Pandey 0, B. Rowland lbw b Bangar 7, S. Sriram (batting) 94, D. Kaarthick c Ojha b Bangar 11, H. Badani c Pandey b Abbas Ali 22, A. Yadav b Chawla 17, S. Nair (batting) 0; Extras (lb-2, nb-5): 7. Total (for five wkts, in 43 overs): 158.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-33, 3-59, 4-107, 5-153.

Central bowling: Pandey 8-0-33-1, Harvinder 6-1-20-0, Bangar 9-2-30-2, Chawla 8-2-25-1, Parida 6-0-21-0, Abbas Ali 6-1-27-1.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail