He may come off as a rustic youth but Parvinder Awana is a thinking bowler. Driving to the ground this morning, he had a few plans in mind and executed them in style, claiming six wickets to hasten East Zone's end on Sunday.
Resuming at 258 for six, East — thanks to Awana's strikes — was restricted to 315. In reply, North Zone was 162 for three on the second day of the Duleep Trophy semifinal at the Ferozeshah Kotla.
There was no marked change in the nature of the pitch and the conditions.
The batsmen had to apply themselves. The bowlers faced the challenge of making the most of the new ball. The bowlers won.
‘Right areas'
“I only aimed to keep the ball on the stumps. I deliberately tried not to swing the ball much. It is always nice if you keep the ball on the length,” said the soft-spoken Awana.
His spell this morning read 10.1-3-24-5 as East lost Wriddhiman Saha and Bilap Samantray within the first hour and then Awana took over.
Saha's dismissal, after the batsman had added 24 runs this morning, was most gratifying for Awana.
“The ball did what I wanted it to do,” he exclaimed.
Having failed to curb Saha's penchant to drive, Awana beat the batsman — this time with one that nipped in, took the inside edge and found the stumps after being deflected off the pad. Saha hit 15 fours and one six.
His dismissal triggered East's collapse as it folded after adding 57 runs to its overnight score. North lost Rahul Dewan cheaply but Shikhar Dhawan and Mandeep Singh stood up and denied East with some sensible batting.
Dhawan was willing to shed his flair for strokeplay and the talented Mandeep was happy to emulate his partner.
They grew in confidence and stature with East finding the left-right combination challenging.
A double-blow by Ashok Dinda pushed North on the defensive when he snared Dhawan and Mandeep.
Having batted 133 balls and hit four boundaries, the left-handed Dhawan drove expansively and ended up rueing it. His association with Mandeep was worth 86 runs.
Mandeep followed soon when he was castled after a 94-ball knock with eight fours and a six.
Responsible knock
A responsible knock by Mayank Sidhana (30 batting, 5x4) and Paras Dogra (33 batting, 4x4, 1x6) kept North in the hunt.
The composed style of Sidhana and Dogra was the best phase of the day as quality stood out in their performance at the crease.
The scores:
East Zone — 1st innings: Dheeraj Jadhav b Awana 33, Manish Vardhan lbw b Bhatia 21, Natraj Behera c and b Bhatia 0, Ishank Jaggi c Mishra b Patel 86, Wriddhiman Saha b Awana 124, Bilap Samantray b Awana 4, Anustup Majumdar c Bisht b Awana 24, Shahbaz Nadeem lbw b Awana 5, Basant Mohanty c Mandeep b Bhatia 0, Abu Nechim c Dewan b Awana 0, Ashok Dinda (not out) 4, Extras (lb-9, nb-9) 18; Total (in 104.1 ovcers) 315.
Fall of wickets: 1-60, 2-60, 3-60, 4-254, 5-273, 6-286, 7-296, 8-303, 9-314.
North bowling: Pradeep Sangwan 19-7-41-0, Harshal Patel 24-5-92-1, Parvinder Awana 28.1-5-84-6, Rajat Bhatia 19-4-45-3, Amit Mishra 14-4-44-0.
North Zone — 1st innings: Rahul Dewan lbw b Mohanty 2, Shikhar Dhawan c Saha b Dinda 40, Mandeep Singh lbw b Dinda 55, Mayank Sidhana (batting) 30, Paras Dogra (batting) 33, Extras (nb-2) 2; Total (for three wkts in 61 overs) 162.
Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-91, 3-112.
East bowling: Dinda 19-1-62-2, Mohanty 18-12-14-1, Nechim 12-2-36-0, Samantray 3-0-11-0, Nadeem 9-1-39-0.
