Rajiv Nayyar's century sustains North Zone

Rajiv Nayyar, who has an insatiable appetite for runs, hit an unbeaten 105 to help North Zone towards a challenging total of 469 in their first innings on the second day of their five day Duleep Trophy final against West Zone at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta on Saturday. At stumps West Zone were eight for no loss.

Nayyar, the 31-year-old right hander from Himachal Pradesh has been in tremendous form this season. His crowning glory was the 271 he compiled in the North Zone Ranji Trophy match against Jammu & Kashmir last month when he batted 1015 minutes - the longest innings in the history of first class cricket. He has monumental patience and a good defence and he showed the twin qualities in abundant measure on Saturday.

North Zone, who resumed on 263 for four, did not lose a fifth wicket till well into the morning's play thanks to some good work by nightwatchman Navdeep Singh. He helped Rajiv Nayyar to add 64 runs for the fifth wicket off 29 overs before he was caught by wicketkeeper PH Patel off Mhambrey for 23. Navdeep defended dourly for 136 minutes. He faced 85 balls and hit two boundaries.

Much was expected of the inform Virendra Shewag who got 274 in the quarterfinal against South Zone. But he was caught by Wasim Jaffar off Mhambrey for 13. Vijay Dahiya, also expected to be among the runs, was caught by Williams off Kulkarni for 10. And when Nikhil Chopra, who got 132 in the semifinal against holders Central Zone, was bowled by Zakir Khan for two, North Zone had slid to 383 for eight.

However the obdurate Nayyar was still around and with the last two batsmen, lifted the North Zone score by 86 runs. First, with Amit Bhandari (20) he added 44 runs for the ninth wicket off 10.5 overs. And then Robin Singh (24) not only helped Nayyar to put on 42 runs for the last wicket from 10 overs but also enabled him to get to his second hundred in this year's competition. Nayyar had earlier scored 118 against South Zone. In typical fashion, Nayyar batted 352 minutes, faced 247 balls and hit 15 fours.

It was hard toil for the West Zone bowlers on an unfriendly track but they stuck to their task manfully. The bowling was mainly in the hands of three medium pacers - Mhambrey, Khan and Siddiqui - and left arm spinner Nilesh Kulkarni. While the seamers found the going particularly tough, Kulkarni was steady and also managed to extract some turn and was rewarded with five wickets for 97 runs after sending down 64.5 overs. He took three of the six wickets to fall on Saturday. Mhambrey and Khan, frustrated by the flat pitch, sent down seven and ten no balls respectively. In addition, Mhambrey also bowled two wides.