Pietersen in the runs again as England A take charge

England A 377 (Pietersen 104, Prior 66, Napier 76, Joshi 4-106) and 88 for 3 (Pietersen 65*) lead South Zone 174 (Venugopal Rao 58*, Tredwell 4 for 41) by 291 runs
Scorecard

England A took complete control on the second day of their Duleep Trophy match at Gurgaon, bowling South Zone out for 174 to claim a lead of 203, and swelling that by 88 more runs before the close.

Overnight England A were 308 for 7, and managed to reach 377, mainly thanks to Essex's Graham Napier, who made 76. South Zone then made a terrible start, losing Barrington Rowland - who was named after the former England stalwart Ken - for a duck, and his fellow opener Ibrahim Khaleel for 1. The experienced Sridharan Sriram steadied the ship, scoring 44 in a third-wicket stand of 74 with Venugopal Rao, who finished with 58 not out.

But apart from Ramakrishnan Ramkumar, who hit 43 from No. 8, and with the captain S Ramesh unable to bat after being injured in the field, the rest struggled against some testing bowling. James Tredwell, the Kent offspinner who is captaining England A in this match, took 4 for 41, and the sparingly used SImon Jones grabbed two middle-order wickets for 24 in his nine overs.

Leading by 203, England A wobbled at the start of their second innings, losing Michael Lumb for a duck and Scott Newman for 10. Ed Smith also ground his way to 10 - from 92 balls - before he was run out. But Kevin Pietersen, fresh from his first-innings century, was again in majestic form, and had swept to 65 out of 88 by the close.