Hyderabad: A tremendous double hundred from Yuvraj Singh put North Zone in commanding position after day two of the four-day Duleep Trophy semifinal against Central Zone at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium. Yuvraj who was playing his first four-day match after successfully defeating a rare germ cell cancer started the day on 133.
He started in brilliant fashion and looked in great touch. He lost his last night’s partner Paras Dogra (37) but that didn’t have any effect on the southpaw’s approach. Yuvraj raised the tempo of his innings as wickets continued to fell at the other end. Yuvraj Singh was the ninth wicket to fell but not before taking his team to a good position.
Earlier in the match, captain Dhawan won the toss and elected to bat first on what looked a pretty flat wicket. Dhawan lost his opening partner Rahul Dewan (17) quite early in the innings but had a good partnership with Nitin Saini (35) for the third wicket. After the fall of Saini’s wicket, Yuvraj came into bat and started middling the ball straightaway.
Both Yuvraj and Dhawan punished the Central Zone bowlers for every lose delivery that they bowled. Together, Dhawan (121) and Yuvraj put up a partnership of 160 runs before Dhawan gave a return catch to Murali Kartik.
After some inspiring batting from Yuvraj, North Zone looked all charged up in the field. Central Zone lost their first wicket to a run-out and all the hard-work done by their openers was undone by some good fielding from Dhawan.
Central Zone lost four quick wickets after, their captain Mohammed Kaif was the only batsmen after the openers who looked to stand his ground, he remained unbeaten Central Zone ended the day at the score of 146/5.
Brief Score:
North Zone: 451/10 (Yuvraj 208, Dhawan 121, Praveen Kumar 4-92)
Central Zone: 146/5 (Kaif 34*, Awana 2-29)
By Indian Sports News Network