The Hindu : Deep Dasgupta hits unbeaten century

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 20, 2002

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Sport - Cricket

Deep Dasgupta hits unbeaten century
By Our Sports Reporter

KOLKATA, MARCH 19. East Zone rode on Deep Dasgupta's undefeated 109 to manage a sedate 261 losing four wickets in the opening day of the Duleep Trophy encounter against Central Zone here at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday.

Opting to bat after the East captain Sanjay Raul won the toss, the host looked thoroughly muzzled down by Central's seam attack spearheaded by former India player Harvinder Singh and Madhya Pradesh medium-pacer Sanjay Pandey - who was one of the two changes in the Central team that lost the first match against West. Pandey was preferred over the promising Uttar Pradesh pacer Shalabh Sriwastava as the former possessed more first-class experience than the latter. Moreover, Sriwastava went wicket-less in the last contest. The other change was Rajasthan off-spinner Rahul Kanwat coming in place of Tejinder Pal Singh.

The Eden turf, justifying BCCI's decision of keeping Duleep Trophy pitches uncovered all along the match, supported the seamers as Singh and Pandey took turns with the new ball. Pandey found a better purchase from the wicket and extended a tight leash on the host that had the Test opening pair in Shiv Sundar Das and Deep Dasgupta. The two batsmen dug themselves in deep and endured the initial hour when the bowlers ruled. Das broke the shackles first and was seen timing his strokes elegantly as his partner took time to negotiate the seamers. Deep, just after having scored his first run, got a reprieve when he was dropped at second slip by Jai Prakash Yadav when Pandey delivered one of his nice out-swingers during the fourth over.

East consolidated following the initial hiccups and the team score remained at 78 with the two openers holding their own. Das, who impressed with a variety of shots all over the park, reached his 50 (132 minutes, 94 balls, 4x10) just after lunch and was stroking freely before he fell to the guiles of seasoned leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani.

Reshmiranjan Parida, replacing Das, was quick to follow his predecessor back to the pavilion miscuing a pull and getting caught off Pandey. East captain Raul joined Dasgupta and the two scripted out a nice 104-run partnership to raise the team's total to 224 before the former departed getting caught behind off former team-mate Kulamani Parida.

Raul's State-mate Pravanjan Mullick appeared to be in good nick and raced to 16 off a similar number of deliveries but had to return to the pavilion as he hurt a back muscle after pulling Hirwani to the fence. Bengal batsman Subhomoy Das returned with a duck getting trapped leg-before facing Parida, forcing another crisis for East. Lakshmi Ratan Shukla joined Dasgupta and the two batted out the day. Das passed the test of endurance and showed good temperament in guiding the East innings. His patience earned him his 100 (292m, 219b, 4x13) and set him on course for a bigger score at the end of the first day.

lThe scores:

East Zone - 1st innings: Shiv Sundar Das lbw b Hirwani 60, Deep Dasgupta (batting) 109, Reshmiranjan Parida c J.P. Yadav b Pandey 5, Sanjay Raul c Jhalani b Parida 40, Prabhanjan Mullick (retd hurt) 16, Subhomoy Das lbw b Parida 0, Lakshmi Ratan Shukla (batting) 9. Extras (b-5, lb-6, nb-11) 22. Total (for four wickets) 261.

Fall of wickets: 1-115, 2-120, 3-224, 4- 243.

Central Zone bowling: Harvinder Singh 16-3-49-0, Sanjay Pandey 14-5-27-1, J.P. Yadav 11-1-37-0, Kulamani Parida 16-1-26-2, Narendra Hirwani 18-1-81-1, Rahul Kanwat 14-5-29-0, Yere Gaud 1-0-1-0.

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