South sparkles as Laxman-Dravid in record stand

South Zone made batting look easy against West Zone in the Duleep trophy clash at the Lalabhai Contractor stadium in Surat as they piled up 595 for the loss of six wickets before declaring on Saturday. The highlight of the day was a 409 run third wicket stand between VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid, a record for any wicket in the competition. Having conceded a first innings lead of 219, West progressed to 64/1 at stumps in their second innings on the third day.

The prolific Hyderabadi VVS Laxman continued his good form with the bat, making a sparkling 217 off 282 balls. His mammoth knock had 25 boundaries and two sixes. Laxman, who began the day unbeaten on 80, notched up his tenth century in as many matches of domestic first-class cricket. Skipper Rahul Dravid missed out on his double ton when he was castled on 188 by Kanitkar. His 292 ball innings had 22 boundaries and a solitary six.

Resuming on the overnight score of 296 for two, the South batsmen took optimum advantage of the perfect batting track as they punished the bowlers all through the day's proceedings. S Ramesh was unlucky to have missed out on his century earlier but both the overnight batsmen Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman went on to register their respective centuries in the day.

By the lunch interval, both were still at the crease having overlapped the West total and taken a lead by 55 runs. Dravid was batting on 130 and Laxman was on 138. Dravid reached the three figure knock off 170 balls and Laxman blazed 149 balls for his century. South went to lunch at 431 for two off 102 overs.

Dravid was the first to go with the score on 564. Four runs later, Laxman followed suit as he edged medium pacer Lalit Patel to Nayan Mongia behind the stumps. Having gone into tea at 587 for four, South declared shortly afterwards with southpaws Hemang Badani and Sunil Joshi at the crease.

In their reply, West openers Connor Williams and Nayan Mongia added 64 for the first wicket before the former fell to Aashish Kapoor for 43 in the 21st over. Stumps were called immediately afterwards with Mongia on 21.