Central win on first-innings lead
A top-order slide from Central Zone would have given North Zone more than a glimmer of hope, but a century from Mahesh Rawat saved the day
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Oct-2014
Mahesh Rawat scored his 10th first-class century • Fotocorp
Central Zone 538 (Ojha 217, Saxena 110, Menaria 62) and 312 (Rawat 116, Karn 69, Kuldeep 56) drew with North Zone 457 (Gambhir 167, Mandeep 74, Saini 56) and 24 for 1
Central Zone win on first-innings lead
Scorecard
Central Zone win on first-innings lead
Scorecard
With Central Zone securing the all-important first-innings lead on day three, the game was already all but decided. But a top-order slide from Central would have given North Zone more than a glimmer of hope. However, Mahesh Rawat, with some help from Nos. 8 and 9 Karn Sharma and Kuldeep Yadav, carried Central to 312 and safety.
Rawat scored his tenth first-class century to arrest a collapse by which Central fell to 95 for 6; Faiz Fazal and Ashok Menaria were taken out for ducks, and Jalaj Saxena and Robin Bist for 2 apiece. Then Rawat built stands of 98 with Karn and 103 with Kuldeep, and the contest was truly over.
North had to bat out a few overs before the day was done, and they sent in bowling allrounders Parvez Rasool and Yuzvendra Chahal to open - a move that demonstrated how insignificant play had become.
Central will face South Zone in the tournament final in Delhi, from October 29.