South Zone undermined their bowlers’ effort with courageous batting in their second innings, reaching 181 for seven to take the reins of the third-day Duleep Trophy final on Friday. South now leads by a healthy 248 runs. Earlier, pacer Vidwath Kaverappa took seven wickets (7/53) as South wasted little time bowling West for 146 to take a 67-run lead in the first innings. It was Vidwath’s career-best first-class bowling tally, and second best for South Zone in Duleep Trophy after Venkatesh Prasad’s 7 for 38 against North Zone in 1993.
The attack from South to that strong position with the bat was tectonic. They started their second innings stuttering, losing R Samarth and N Tilak Varma in quick succession.
Samarth was undone by a delivery from Chintan Gaja that stayed a bit low, while Arzan Nagwaswalla managed to sneak the ball between Tilak’s bat and pads to rearrange the stumps.
South had 8 for 2 at the time and it was not an ideal situation for them as the lead hadn’t even passed 100 yet.
However, Mayank Agarwal and Hanuma Vihari dented West’s ambitions to push further. The third wicket pair added 64 runs in just over 14 overs to put South back in play.
But the teaming up wasn’t as smooth as you might expect when you consider that there were two veteran hitters in the middle.
There were several plays and misses, loud calls, edges that fell short of fielders, but Mayank and Vihari were strong enough to waddle through those outside pressure points.
But just as the partnership blossomed, Mayank’s attempt to pull Nagwaswalla’s short ball ended up in the hands of Suryakumar Yadav.
Mayank wasn’t entirely happy with it though, as Nagwaswalla had already bowled two assigned bouncers per over.
The Karnataka right-hander felt that it could have been called as the third short from the over, thus a no-ball.
Mayank reacted to the dismissal in a petty way, shouting at almost everyone around him and later requiring the match referee’s intervention.
Atit Sheth produced a weak outer edge from Vihari as South slid to 95 for 4. South needed another strong push forward with their lead still at a shaky 162.
Ricky Bhui and Sachin Baby produced the most solid alliance of the South’s second innings for the fifth wicket, with 59 runs off 97 balls.
There was hardly a moment of solace for the duo and a 22-minute stoppage due to bad light was the only stopping point.
Sachin attempted some perfect pulls while Bhui played a fine straight drive from Sheth as South extended their lead past 200.
Both Sachin and Bhui were evicted with a score of 154. But by then South had fueled enough for a further advance until bad light made the day disappear. PTI UNG UNG TAP
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