East Zone posts win

By S. Sabanayakan

AGARTALA, JAN. 27. East Zone took two hours and thirty five minutes on the third day to tame one of the best bowling attacks in the country to win the Duleep Trophy league match by four wickets here on Saturday. South, needing to pick up eight East wickets, failed to deliver when it mattered most. It could only capture four at the Maharaja Bir Bikram Stadium.

The man who piloted East to a well deserved victory was its captain Shiv Sundar Das. Unbeaten on 49 overnight, he added 30 runs in 102 minutes to ensure victory.

Chasing 167, East was 71 for two on Friday. It resumed with Das and Sanjay Raul against a charged up Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad. The early success came South's way when the two pacers struck in quick succession. Prasad had Raul leg before with a low ball and Srinath was rewarded when Rohan Gavaskar drove an away going ball to be caught by Vijay Bharadwaj in the third slip.

The success spurred South for greater deeds as the two speedsters operated with plan and purpose. South should have wrapped up the match much earlier had not umpire Suresh Shastri turned down a confident bat-pad appeal by short-leg fielder Nandakishore off Prasad in the second over.

Das steeled his will and continued to play correctly despite losing Zakaria Juffri at 78. Much of the credit should go to Das and the new batsman Deep Dasgupta to keep East afloat. They added 46 runs for the sixth wicket in 15.2 overs. This small partnership turned the match around, and most importantly shifted the pressure to the bowling side.

Das did not play as well as yesterday afternoon, but had enough resolve to keep one end going. The best part of Das' innings was the ability to play shots when under pressure. Das , leading the zonal side for the first time , did not spare a loose ball.

Das reached half century in 156 minutes stay in 119 balls, with seven 4s. Dasgupta content to play the second fiddle saw his skipper leaving, snapped bat-pad at silly-point by Laxman off left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi for a splendid 79 (242m, 183b, 11x4).

Sukhvinder Singh a confident Dasgupta and proceeded to deny South further success. East still needed 43 runs with just Utpal Chatterjee to follow Dasgupta and Singh. The other two remaining batsmen, Debasish Mohanty and Javed Zaman, could not have helped East with their batting.

Skipper Rahul Dravid shuffled his bowlers, yet failed to break the pair on a pitch which, surprisingly, played better than the first two days. Dasgupta and Singh inched ahead to take the side into lunch at 158 for six in 70 overs. The match ended in the first over when Srinath bowled after lunch. Singh hit Srinath off the backfoot over the bowler's head for a straight boundary, punched him to backward point for the second and fended off a bouncer through the slips for the third boundary to bring down the curtain. Dasgupta was not out on 32 (118m, 68b, 4x4) and Singh on 22 (51m, 49b, 3x4).

East (13 points from three matches) plays West in the last league. South (eight points from three matches) will play Central in its last match from February 1.

The scores:

South - 1st innings: 113.

East - 1st innings: 124.

South - 2nd innings: 177.

East - 2nd innings : Shiv Sundar Das c Laxman b Joshi 79; P. Jayachandra b Prasad 3; Reshmi Ranjan Parida b Srinath 0; Sanjay Raul lbw b Prasad 18; Rohan Gavaskar c Bharadwaj b Srinath 1; Zakaria Juffri lbw b Prasad 1; Deep Dasgupta (not out) 32; Sukhvinder Singh (not out) 22; Extras (b- 7, lb-3, nb-4): 14; Total (for six wickets ): 170.

Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-8, 3-76, 4-77, 5-78, 6-124.

South bowling: Javagal Srinath 18.4-3-58-2; Venkatesh Prasad 20-3-44-3; Sunil Joshi 17-8-22-1; Aashish Kapoor 9-3-16-0; W.D. Balaji Rao 3-0-10-0; Vijay Bharadwaj 3-0-10-0.

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