For the better part of the opening day, it appeared like a contest between Karnataka and East Zone. After all, eight players – including four frontline batsmen – from the Ranji Trophy champion state are part of the playing eleven for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy semifinal here.
As long as Robin Uthappa rode his luck to score 120, East Zone pace bowlers toiled to make the most of the conditions at the Bansi Lal Stadium here. But their persistence, coupled with the availability of the second new ball, triggered off a sensational batting collapse that saw South slip from 211 for two to 236 for nine at stumps on Wednesday.
The fall of seven wickets in the space of 25 runs was in keeping with the trend seen so often at this venue. The teams had their moments and there was little to choose between them.
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Uthappa, dropped on 10 at third slip by Sudip Chatterjee off Ashok Dinda in the day’s seventh over, proceeded with caution to reach 30 at lunch. His opening partner K. L. Rahul, however, could not make it big, failing to read a delivery from Laxmi Ratan Shukla that came back to clip the bails. The veteran from Bengal was the pick of the bowlers, taking four for 30.
Having invested the first session in settling down, Uthappa looked to play strokes and hit eight more boundaries while scoring 53 runs in the post-lunch session. He was particularly severe on a wayward Varun Aaron whom he hit for two boundaries each past covers and mid-wicket.
All this while, the run-rate picked up for South Zone. From just 63 runs in 34 overs before lunch, the second session saw an addition of 92 runs in 26 overs.
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Even as Uthappa moved closer to his century, he lost the company of Karun Nair after the two had added 94 runs for the second wicket. Nair offered a catch at second slip, an error Manish Pandey was to commit too.
In fact, East should thank its stars sincer Rahul, Nair and Pandey could not capitalize on the starts they got.
Uthappa turned his attention to Ashok Dinda to hit him for two boundaries. At 93, Uthappa hoisted Dinda for a six over long-on and in the same over, sent the ball past the mid-wicket fence to reach his fortuitous century.
Uthappa, a ball after hitting Manoj Tiwary for a straight six, was lucky to be dropped by Shukla at mid-on when on 118. But luckily for East, Uthappa did not last long.
The new ball, taken after 80 overs, truly brought East back in the game. The wickets of Baba Aparajith, Dinesh Karthik and Vinay Kumar – the last two in one over from Shukla – fell at 230. In what turned out to be the day’s last over, Dinda sent back Stuart Binny and Pragyan Ojha to bring more cheer to the East camp.
The scores:
South Zone: Robin Uthappa c Saha b Dutta 120; K. L. Rahul b Shukla 21, Karun Nair c Saurabh Tiwari b Shukla 32, Manish Pandey c Saurabh Tiwari b Dutta 26, Dinesh Karthik b Shukla 9, Baba Aparajith lbw b
Mohanty 7, Stuart Binny c Manoj Tiwary b Dinda 5, Vinay Kumar c and b Shukla 0, A. Mithun (batting) 1, Pragyan Ojha lbw b Dinda 0, Extras (b-4, lb-3, nb-3, w-5), Total (for nine wickets in 86.5 overs) 236
Fall of wickets: 1-43, 2-137, 3-211, 4-212, 5-230, 6-230, 7-230, 8-236, 9-236.
East Zone bowling: Ashok Dinda 16.5-3-51-2, Basant Mohanty 19-6-29-1, Rana Dutta 19-4-60-2, Varun Aaron 12-3-43-0, L. R. Shukla 17-4-30-4, Manoj Tiwary 3-0-16-0.