East Zone beat back belated Central challenge

East Zone beat back a belated challenge from Central Zone to win a close contest by three wickets on the opening day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy (Under-16) cricket tournament at the KL Saini stadium in Jaipur on Sunday.

Opting to bat, Central Zone were all out for 180 in 47 overs. After five wickets had fallen for 56 runs, wicketkeeper AS Naidu (46) and Afroz Khan (67 not out) added 66 runs for the sixth wicket off 15 overs in a rescue act. While Naidu faced 68 balls and hit four of them to the ropes, Khan faced 99 balls and hit four fours and a six. Opening bowler and East Zone skipper M Talukdar, who had caused most of the early damage, was the most successful bowler with three for 14 from seven overs.

When Central Zone batted, valuable contributions from most of their top order batsmen - opener M Vardhan (35), Subhjeet Paul (29), PJ Das (24) and A Nandi (31) saw them cruising towards victory at 138 for three in the 35th over. But then wickets fell at regular intervals and at 167 for seven in the 43rd over, there was some pressure on East Zone. However they were finally home without any further loss in 45.4 overs.