Arun Kumar stars in South Zone's victory

Making light of a difficult target, South Zone romped to an eight wicket victory over East Zone in the Deodhar Trophy match at the Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Chasing a challenging total of 275 for seven in 50 overs, South Zone, led by the irrepressible J Arun Kumar coasted to a win with 5.1 overs to spare.

Shrugging off a six wicket defeat at the hands of West Zone in their opening game on January 22, South Zone put up a commendable show against East Zone, who went down to their second successive loss. The batsmen in particular displayed very good form and no one played better than the consistent Arun Kumar who notched up his second successive century in the competition. He had scored 121 against West Zone. Arun Kumar and S Mahesh set South Zone on the road to victory pretty early with a first wicket partnership of 126 runs off 23 overs. The Tamil Nadu opening bowler, who loves to strike the ball, relished his new role and almost matched the in form Arun Kumar in strokes and run production. By the time Mahesh was out for 50 off 70 balls with six fours and a six, South Zone were already on their way. Arun Kumar and left hander S Sriram (39) then maintained the tempo with a second wicket partnership of 78 runs from 11.3 overs. By the time Sriram left in the 35th over, South Zone had virtually made sure of a facile victory. By this time, Arun Kumar had got to his century and the Karnataka opening batsman just carried on in the company of his captain Sridharan Sarath, who at the end was not out with 20. But the cynosure was Arun Kumar who remained unbeaten with 148. So commanding was his batsmanship that he faced just 150 balls and hit 16 fours and three sixes. The unbroken third wicket stand between Arun Kumar and Sarath added 72 runs off 10.2 overs to steer South Zone home quite comfortably.

The morning belonged to East Zone and to Rashmi Ranjan Parida in particular. The 25-year-old Orissa right hander struck an unbeaten 106 off 112 balls with 13 fours as East Zone made runs confidently. His innings was important as it also rescued East Zone from a hesitant start. Nikhil Haldipur was dismissed by Kumaran for a duck and then Rohan Gavaskar (26) fell at 66 in the 14th over. But Parida and opener SS Das then initiated a recovery process by adding 69 runs for the third wicket off 14.3 overs. Das then fell for 52 off 77 balls, inclusive of four hits to the ropes. The recovery process was continued by Parida and Saba Karim who put on 44 runs for the fourth wicket off 7.4 overs. But off spinner Aashish Kapoor who had dismissed Das, then triggered off a mini collapse by taking the wickets of SS Raul (1) and Rajiv Kumar with successive deliveries. But Laxmi Ratan Shukla and Parida then revived the innings with a seventh wicket partnership of 75 runs off 10.5 overs before the former was out for a valuable 37. Shukla faced 40 balls and hit four fours and a six. Parida reached his hundred shortly afterwards and East Zone were able to post what seemed to be a challenging total, despite the efforts of Kapoor, who finished with three for 53 off ten overs. But then they reckoned without Arun Kumar.