Bahutule spearheads West Zone's win

An all-round display by Sairaj Bahutule powered West Zone to a comprehensive 105-run victory over East Zone in their Deodhar Trophy league match at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai on Friday.

Bahutule struck an unbeaten 56 when his team was struggling at 140 for six. He added 90 runs for the seventh wicket with Parthiv Patel (46) to help West put up a fighting score of 239 all out after opting to bat first on winning the toss.

Later, Bahuule, the Maharashtra skipper, bowled his legspinners splendidly to bamboozle the East Zone batting line up and finished with a haul of 4 for 23 in ten overs, besides taking a catch to emerge as West's player of the day.

East Zone were bundled out for a paltry 134, with only Abhishek Jhunjhunwala (38) and Rohan Gavaskar (35) crossing the 30s. Rakesh Patel, the mediumpace bowler from Baroda, rocked East Zone by sending back Parvez Azis, the opener, and Manoj Tiwary, cheaply while Sidharth Trivedi accounted for the other opener Wriddhiman Saha to leave East Zone gasping at 36 for three, a position from which they never recovered.

East Zone were bowled out in the 40th over when Deep Dasgupta, the captain, who made 23 not out, only needed to play out the complete over with last man Ranadeb Bose to deny West Zone the bonus point. But when Dasgupta took a run off the first ball, exposing the tail-ender, the game was up. Bose was yorked off the very next ball.

West Zone thus earned an extra point to take their tally to nine from two ties while East Zone lost one point and were left with three in their kitty after two ties.