East Zone riding on a good 6th wicket partnership reached 187-7 on day 1 of the semifinals clash between East South and South Zone of the Duleep Trophy at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Sunday.
A report in The Hindu writes that Saurabh Tiwary (84, 162b, 10x4,1x6) along with Basant Mohanty (51, 102b, 3x4, 2x6) rescued East Zone with an unbeaten 121-run stand in the Duleep Trophy semifinal against South Zone at the ACA-VDCA stadium here on Sunday.
East was down in the dumps at 66 for six when Mohanty joined Tiwary. The two then took the team to 187 for six before bad light stopped play.
South put East in on a pitch full of moisture after the match had commenced 45 minutes late due to the wet patches at the bowler’s run-up. East was in all sorts of trouble against the medium-pacers led by captain R. Vinay Kumar who simply kept their line and length.
At lunch East was 33 for four when Tiwary came to the crease. He played with a lot of caution while two more wickets fell at the other end with only 66 runs on board.
Meanwhile a report in The Times of India says that justifying his decision to bowl first, South’s skipper Vinay Kumar struck in his second over by removing left-handed Dheeraj Jadhav who was caught by Amit Verma at first slip. Abhimanyu Mithun, off radar to begin with, discovered the virtue of hitting the right areas when Manish Verma doubled up in pain after being hit by a wicked one and duly edged the next to Manish Pandey at second slip.
Vinay's tight leash had the desired effect. Skipper Nataraj Behera chanced his arm off Stuart Binny's first delivery and the intended pull was gobbled up by his opposite number running to his right at mid-on. And when Binny struck again three deliveries later when Anustup Majumdar edged a peach to wicketkeeper CM Gautham, lunch, at 33 for four, was perhaps farthest on East Zone's mind.
Biplab Samantray did not last long on resumption and when SP Gautam also succumbed cheaply, East Zone were reduced to 66 for six.