Bawne century puts West Zone ahead

Ankit Bawne's ninth first-class century and a run-a-ball 73 from Yusuf Pathan steered West Zone to a 43-run lead against East Zone on the second day at the Bansi Lal Stadium. Bawne scored 105 and was eighth out, lbw to the Tripura medium-pacer Rana Dutta, immediately after West Zone had gone past East Zone's first-innings total of 278. Dutta then dismissed Akshay Darekar to bring up his fourth first-class five-wicket haul, but the last-wicket pair of Dhawal Kulkarni and Shardul Thakur proved hard to dislodge, and they carried on batting till stumps, having stretched their partnership to an unbroken 30.

West Zone, having started the day on 10 for 0, had lost three wickets - including that of their captain Cheteshwar Pujara -in 11.1 overs and were 40 for 3 when Bawne walked in. That quickly became 47 for 4 when Dutta bowled the opener Vijay Zol. Bawne and Suryakumar Yadav then began the process of steering West Zone out of trouble, adding 74 for the fifth wicket before Dutta struck again to have Suryakumar caught and bowled for 31.

That partnership came at a fairly brisk 3.60 runs per over, and the arrival of Yusuf upped the scoring rate even more. Yusuf struck 10 fours and two sixes in his 73-ball 73, and added 124 with Bawne in 136 balls before he became Dutta's fourth victim. East Zone could have had Yusuf out much earlier, and could have had West Zone 148 for 6, but Manoj Tiwary dropped him off Ashok Dinda when he had only scored 8.