Pandey, Aparajith slam double-hundreds

South Zone 553 for 7 (Pandey 213, Aparajith 212) v West Zone
Scorecard

Manish Pandey and B Aparajith slammed double-hundreds to help South Zone reach a mammoth 553 for 7 at the end of the second day against West Zone in the Duleep Trophy quarter-final in Chennai. The two batsmen were not very far from their hundreds at the start of the day and while it was the third first-class double-hundred for Pandey, Aparajith went past 200 for the first time as 98 overs were bowled after a curtailed first day. Aparajith became only the fourth batsman to score a double-century on a Duleep Trophy debut after Mohammad Azaharuddin, Sanjay Manjrekar and Rakesh Parikh.

Pandey was retired hurt on the score of 104 and Aparajith was joined by wicketkeeper CM Gautam, who was trapped lbw by left-arm spinner Akshay Darekar for a duck. Rohan Prem and Aparajith put on 91 for the fifth wicket, out of which Prem made 35 before he was dismissed by Murtuja Vahora. Pandey rejoined Aparajith at the team score of 333 and both batsmen then put on another 140 runs for the sixth wicket.

Their partnership was ended by a run-out when substitute fielder Harshad Khadiwale dismissed Aparajith for 212 after he had struck 17 fours and a six. Pandey crossed the score of 200 soon after but fell short of his highest score of 218 by five runs when he was given lbw to Rakesh Dhurv. Malolan Rangarajan and captain Vinay Kumar saw them till stumps with unbeaten contributions of 26 and 19, respectively. West Zone used seven different bowlers but none apart from Vahora could take more than one wicket.