The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Rajesh Pawar bamboozles East Zone

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Rajesh Pawar bamboozles East Zone

G. Viswanath

— Photo: Vivek Bendre

Rajesh Pawar celebrates.

Mumbai: Left-arm spinner Rajesh Pawar caused the downfall of East Zone for a mere 171 after being invited to bat by the home team in their Duleep Trophy semifinal at the Brabourne Stadium here on Thursday.

Chosen ahead of Mumbai’s successful spinner Ramesh Powar, the puny looking 29-year-old ran through the East innings. Once he broke the resolve of the fourth-wicket pair, with Saurabh Tiwary’s flick snapped up by Kedar Jadhav at short-leg, East’s innings fell apart.

With the pitch expected to make it a pleasurable outing for seamers at least with the new ball, West Zone skipper Wasim Jaffer packed the side with four — Dhawal Kulkarni, Siddharth Trivedi, Samad Fallah and Abishek Nayar.

Kulkarni and Trivedi dispatched Shiv Sundar Das and Dibyendu Chakrabarty with genuine wicket-taking deliveries, while Manoj Tiwary gifted his wicket to Nayar.

Sweetly timed shots

Except for a chance off Trivedi which Cheteshwar Pujara failed to latch on to, Rashmi Ranjan Parida struck some sweetly timed shots in front of the wicket.

Along with the left-handed Saurabh Tiwary he stitched a partnership of 61 runs before the Pawar-Jadhav combination affected the vital breakthrough.

East lost six wickets for 18 runs and Pawar ended up with his best figures in the inter-zonal championship.

Full marks

When West began its innings, Jaffer was dismissed for a duck, Ranadib Bose deserving full marks for luring the right-hander to his doom.

Given an opportunity in a big match Gujarat’s Bhavik Thaker was diligent in his work for nearly two hours while Pujara was to take West to 102 at draw of stumps.

The scores: East Zone — 1st innings: D. Chakrabarty c Pujara b Trivedi 36, S.S. Das lbw b Kulkarni 0, R.R. Parida lbw b Pawar 63, Manoj Tiwary c Trivedi b Nayar 13, Saurabh Tiwary c Jadhav b Pawar 24, W. Saha c Jaffer b Pawar 0, Halhadar Das (not out) 15, A. Katti c Jaffer b Pawar 0, R. Bose c Rahane b Pawar 1, B. Mohanty c Rahane b Trivedi 0, A. Dinda c Kulkarni b Pawar 12; Extras (lb-5, nb-2): 7; Total (in 61.3 overs): 171.

Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-54, 3-75, 4-136, 5-136, 6-151, 7-151, 8-153, 9-154.

West bowling: Kulkarni 16-6-42-1, Trivedi 19-5-49-2, Fallah 10-5-19-0, Nayar 7-0-22-1, Pawar 9.3-3-34-6.

West Zone — 1st innings: B. Thaker (batting) 42, W. Jaffer c Manoj Tiwary b Bose 0, A. Rahane c Mohanty b Bose 23, C. Pujara (batting) 34; Extras (lb-1, nb-1, w-1): 3; Total (for two wkts in 25 overs): 102.

Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-42.

East bowling: Bose 9-4-17-2, Mohanty 5-0-13-0, Dinda 7-1-42-0, Katti 3-0-21-0, Manoj Tiwary 1-0-8-0.

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