The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Pagnis shines on day one

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Friday, Oct 28, 2005

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Sport - Cricket

Pagnis shines on day one

G. Viswanath

Surat: Amit Pagnis wielded his willow like a champion against South Zone in the Inter-Zonal Duleep Trophy `A' league match on Thursday.

The South Zone skipper Hemang Badani won the toss and elected to field.

The pugnacious left-hander made an attractive 142 on the first day and Central posted an impressive 299 for the loss of three wickets. Pagnis's ally after Central made a dismal start was Jyoti Yadav, who scored 86 (9 x 4) and was involved in a second wicket stand of 222 runs.

Pagnis gave an outstanding display when confronted with a wide variety of attack that had three seamers and two spinners.

It was a well thought out decision by Badani to field first having picked five specialist bowlers. But the opening spells by Laxmipathy Balaji, who captured six wickets against West and Vinaykumar was far from a good effort their captain was looking for.

Good stand

On a featherbed of a pitch Bangar and Pagnis kept the bowlers at bay, and when Pagnis was at his fluent best, Balaji seemed to slacken to set the scene on fire. Bowling from close to the stumps and straight, Sahabuddin forced Bangar to nick behind. After that Badani had tried eight bowlers before tea to break the stand that first rescued and subsequently put Central on a prosperous path. But Ramkumar struck two blows in quick succession to remove his side's two stumbling blocks from the middle. But Devendra Bundela and Syed Abbas Ali Khan, surviving some anxious moments, baulked the probing line, length and turn of Ramkumar.

The scores: Central Zone — Ist Innings: S. Bangar c Kaarthick b Sahabuddin 11, A. Pagnis c Badani b Ramkumar 142, J. Yadav c Kaarthick b Ramkumar 86, D. Bundela batting 15, S. Abbas Ali batting 25, Extras (b-1, lb-3, nb-13, w-2) 19, Total (for three wkts. in 90 overs) 299.

Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-252, 3-254.

South Zone bowling: Balaji 14-2-56-0, Vinaykumar 15-2-55-0, Sahabuddin 17-3-59-1, Ramkumar 26-7-57-2, Nair 11-2-32-0, Uthappa 2-0-20-0, Yadav 4-1-12-0, Sriram 1-0-4-0.

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