In a dramatic turnaround of events, South Zone staged a comeback on the third day of Duleep Trophy semifinals against East Zone. South after conceding a first innings lead of 23 runs now have have dismissed East batsmen by the end of day’s play. East Zone at stumps were down to 129-6.
A report in The Hindu writes that South Zone captain R. Vinay Kumar returned to pavilion after a satisfying day and a hopeful note on Tuesday. His team is in with a good chance of forcing a win over holder East Zone in the Duleep Trophy semifinal.
East after gaining a lead of 23 in the first innings was struggling at 129 for six in the second. Vinay Kumar’s fine knock of 61 (7x4,117b, 152m) earlier in the day helped the team rally. Later Stuart Binny’s double strike gave South the edge. He picked up Saurabh Tiwary for a duck, with Manish Pandey picking up an excellent low catch in the second slip.
In the next over Binny trapped Nataraj Behra (60, 8x4,113 b, 148m) in front. The East Zone captain was building the innings after losing Dhiraj Jadhav with whom he added 65 for the second wicket.
Vinay Kumar had given South a good start as he had opener Manish Vardhan bowled with no runs on the board. East slid further into trouble when Anustup Mazumdar was stumped when he jumped out to Aushik Srinivas and Pandey came up with another brilliant catch to remove S.P. Gautam.
The third day of the Duleep Trophy semifinal between South and East at the ACA-VDCA ground swung like a pendulum, quite like the extreme emotions the South skipper displayed writes The Hindustan Times.
Though South Zone capitulated on 244, 23 runs short of taking the first innings lead, an impressive bowling display presented the visitors with regular setbacks. Ultimately, East were struggling at 129 for six at stumps on Tuesday.
At the start of the day, the odds were stacked against East beating South to the first innings lead. The onus was on left-handed Amit Verma and skipper Vinay Kumar to steer the hosts closer to the target.
While Verma was busy rotating the strike, Kumar decided to go on the offensive.
A couple of slog sweeps to the deep midwicket region from Kumar off Saxena’s left-arm spin saw South posing a threat.
Finally, Kumar’s luck ran out. East Zone were ecstatic, Kumar was disheartened and the game seemed to have slipped out of South’s grasp.
But, in the first over of East’s second innings, Kumar had reason to celebrate, as he sent Vardhan packing.
Further tight bowling did not allow the likes of Dheeraj Jadhav and Natraj Behera to score freely. Soon, Jadhav was trapped leg before.
At close, East were just 152 runs ahead with four wickets in hand and a full day’s play remaining. A possible cracker is on the cards.
By Indian Sports News Network