North Zone inflicted a crushing 237 run defeat inside three days over
East Zone in their Duleep Trophy clash at Guwahati's North-East
Frontier Railway Stadium on Saturday. Chasing 394 for victory, East
crumbled for the second time in the match, submitting meekly for 156
in just three hours. The victory, worth eight points, kept North Zone
at the head of the pack with 18 points from three games.
After Aashish Nehra, first innings wrecker-in-chief, dismissed Nikhil
Haldipur in the third over, Shiv Sunder Das and Rashmi Parida compiled
the highest stand of the innings. Their 49 run association was broken
when Reetinder Sodhi sent back Das for 27, which turned out to be the
top score. Parida and Sanjay Raul fell soon after to leave East at
71/4. The left arm spin of Rahul Sanghvi then took out Rohan Gavaskar
and Sukhbinder Singh in the space of five balls.
Wicket keeper Deep Dasgupta, who struck a bright 25 in 32 balls
inclusive of four boundaries, was ejected by Nehra to leave East at
106/7. Utpal Chatterjee and Mihir Diwakar added 44 for the ninth
wicket in a last flicker of resistance before both fell in successive
balls.
Sanghvi polished off the match, packing off Mohanty for a fifth ball
duck. East's second innings had lasted all of 40.2 overs. Sanghvi
finished with 4/17, the off spinner Sharandeep not being used at all.
Nehra scalped three for a costly 76 runs in 15 overs, collecting match
figures of 10/90. East stay at a lowly five points from two games.