Duleep Trophy: Bowlers have a ball as West Zone gain control against South Zone

Bengaluru, July 12

The relentless West Zone bowlers left South Zone in trouble at 182/7 on the opening day of their Duleep Trophy final here today.

After choosing to field, West never let the advantage slip on an overcast day that was eventually called off for a few minutes due to bad light.

South’s captain Hanuma Vihari waged a lone battle, making 63 off 130 balls.

Even though they were operating in a favourable space, West’s pacers Arzan Nagwaswalla, Chintan Gaja and Atit Sheth should be lauded for keeping South’s batters in check.

They moved the ball quite appreciably to keep openers Mayank Agarwal and R Samarth on toes. The first wicket did not take long to come, though it was more the result of the batter’s callousness.

Samarth opted to cut Gaja’s short and wide delivery outside the off-stump and Harvik Desai, who replaced Het Patel, completed a simple catch behind the stumps.

Thereafter, Mayank and N Tilak Varma started to move things ahead for the South. In the process, Mayank, who began the match at 6,976 runs, also completed 7,000 runs in First-Class cricket from 159 innings.

However, Mayank was not able to convert the start. He often tried to negate the movement while walking down the pitch, and it was brought an undesired result when the Karnataka right-hander’s expansive drive off Sheth ended in a catch to Sarfaraz Khan at third slip.

Brief scores: South Zone: 182/7 (Vihari 63, Tilak 40; Mulani 2-19, Gaja 2-27) vs West Zone.