On a windy day, the place it threatened to rain virtually always, Central Zone restricted the much-fancied West Zone to 216/8 on the primary day of the Duleep Trophy semifinal on the Alur (I) Cricket Ground in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Central skipper Shivam Mavi led from the entrance with a four-wicket haul as West’s vaunted high order crumbled after it gained the toss.
The defending champion’s innings reached a degree of respectability largely because of a battling half-century by all-rounder Atit Seth.
The Central aspect was at its restrictive finest because it stored the run charge beneath three all through the day, because it appears to be like for a primary win over West in Duleep Trophy in 25 years.
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West started the day sedately with its openers – skipper Priyank Panchal and Prithvi Shaw – largely in management. But the duo discovered it onerous to maintain the scorecard shifting, with the primary boundary coming solely within the seventh over of the day.
Shaw regarded in good contact, as he hit just a few crunching boundaries, earlier than departing, because of an impressed piece of fielding by Dhruv Jurel.
The 23-year-old opener tried to tackle left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar with a back-foot punch, which was trapped by Jurel together with his pads at foolish level earlier than he gathered it together with his palms. Panchal quickly adopted his opening companion, after he was trapped in entrance by first-change bowler Yash Thakur.
Mavi, after having been a tad too full with the brand new ball, bowled an impressed second spell and was rewarded with the prized wickets of Suryakumar Yadav and Sarfaraz Khan. First, he drew an outdoor edge from the previous, which was gathered once more by Jurel, this time at second slip with a diving catch.
The 24-year-old pacer then induced an inside edge from Sarfaraz, which might crash onto the stumps to dismiss the No. 5 batter for a 12-ball duck.
Avesh Khan then dismantled Het Patel’s stumps with a searing, in-swinging yorker to go away West reeling at 65/5.
Avesh’s involvement within the day’s play although would quickly finish after he and Rinku Singh left the sphere injured, following a collision between the 2 whereas making an attempt to take a catch.
All this whereas, Cheteshwar Pujara had batted himself into the sport, using his immaculate defence to nice impact. He engaged in a protracted battle with Saurabh, typically defending together with his lengthy stride ahead and punishing the spinner with photographs on the off-side when he dropped his size.
Pujara and Sheth regarded regular of their 45-run partnership, earlier than the Saurashtra batter – after having performed out greater than 100 deliveries with out erring – uncharacteristically flashed at a brief ball from Mavi to supply a easy catch to Amandeep Khare at first slip.
Baroda all-rounder Sheth then stitched up a 73-run partnership with Dharmendrasinh Jadeja to pull West to safer waters. The duo regarded snug out within the center, with Sheth cracking some perfectly-timed boundaries on each side of the pitch.
Jadeja performed the proper foil to Sheth and had just a few attacking photographs of his personal to supply, together with a sweetly-hit sweep shot of off-spinner Saransh Jain for an enormous six.
Jain although, would have the final chuckle, after he had Jadeja caught bat-pad at brief leg.
Mavi would return to strike an important blow once more with a late closing spell. He swung the second new ball away from Sheth simply sufficient to get a nick to the slip cordon, the place Jurel took one other wonderful coach.
Chintan Gaja and Arzan Nagwaswalla noticed out the remainder of the day for the West, with rain clouds circling again as soon as once more over the bottom.
Source: sportstar.thehindu.com