Mumbai: One hundred and twenty five minutes was all it took to seal West Zone’s fate in the Duleep Trophy final. The ship went aground after they lost five wickets before lunch for 108.
Yet again they collapsed to VRV Singh, who pillaged his second fiver in the game. Bundling West Zone out for 231, North stuttered in their chase of 166, losing Karan Goel, Aakash Chopra and skipper Mithun Manhas with only 40 on the board. Continue reading below
They finished the day at 74-3. With Shikhar Dhawan (44) and Yashpal Singh (14) at the wicket, North looked set to defend the title.
If West Zone harboured any hopes of a fruitful first session, they were annulled by the early dismissal of Sahil Kukreja, caught behind on the third ball of the day — giving VRV his first fish.
Wasim Jaffer continued to exhibit his chronic reluctance on the front foot. In between the iffy movements, Jaffer’s feet, in his signature elegance, smoothed out to anything pitched around the pads.
North knew they had to keep plugging away on the off. A couple of streaky boundaries past third man pepped up VRV & Co. Finally, in the 14th over of the day, Ashok Thakur fenced Jaffer in. Thakur dropped it a touch short of length. Jaffer, half-cocked, played down the wrong line and the bails scooped out.
Ask a captain the true import of the likes of Vikramjit Malik. As he did in the first game against South Zone, Malik charged in zestfully and sealed West Zone’s fate in the space of fifteen deliveries first accounting for the skipper.
Parthiv Patel has been uncharacteristically amorous of anything slanting away. The skipper perished to third slip for three unable to restrain himself from the fatal jab when the situation demanded that he hunker down for a long grind.
Cheteshwar Pujara has collected a pair here. But it’s difficult to imagine who wouldn’t have suffered a similar fate on those deliveries. In the first innings he got a scorcher of a yorker from VRV. In the second dig he was undone by a Malik-special that zipped in sharply to send the middle-stump on multiple somersaults.
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Meanwhile, at the other end, Ajinkya Rahane was his enterprising self, feeding on full-length deliveries. But soon West found themselves deep down in the drums after Rahane fell to VRV for 43 — once more freezing in front of the stumps. North had managed to pack up half the side for 108.
When the next bat took guard, the field-set looked as if the score was 300/1. When deep backward square, deep square leg and short fine leg are manned in Indian domestic cricket, it has to be Yusuf Pathan at the wicket. Amit Mishra was given a clear mandate: pitch it on the leg.
Pathan was starting to get sweet wood on the sweeps and upper cuts. In no time he raced to his fifty (in 35 balls) giving visions of a fight-back. At lunch North Zone were 147/5, significantly at a four-plus run rate.
After the second day’s play Rajat Bhatia had admitted that the leg trap was one of the plans to stifle Pathan. The Baroda dasher couldn’t have been oblivious to it but chose derring-do over foresight.
North snared their prey in the fifth over after lunch. Pathan tried one sweep too many off Mishra and top edged to short fine leg.
Rakesh Solanki and Rakesh Dhurv packed more gumption in their bats than the top order. The association defied North for 55 runs until Solanki, 33, threw it away to an upper cut to wide third man.
VRV Singh struck in the same over scalping Sandeep Jobanputra and ran loops around the West tail to finish with five for 86, including that of Dhurv for 41, taking his tally to ten wickets in the match.
Brief scores:
West Zone 231 (Yusuf Pathan 61, Ajinkya Rahane 43, Rakesh Dhurv 41, Rakesh Solanki 33, VRV Singh 5/86) and 274 (Ajinkya Rahane 91, VRV Singh 5/91, Amit Mishra 3/57)
North Zone 74/3 (Shikhar Dhawan 44, Trivedi 2/29) and 340 (Rajat Bhatia 84, Yashpal Singh 59, VRV 33, Ashok Thakur 33, Trivedi 6/67)
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