Discarded India paceman takes four wickets for 41 runs in 17 overs to leave East Zone at 176 for nine, just 189 runs ahead at stumps on Day Two.
AHMEDABAD: At the end of the second day’s play, both coaches would have reasons to be cross at their players, and valid ones at that. After restricting East Zone to 5-39, West Zone, instead of putting a firm foot on the pedal and giving the machine all the gas at their disposal, relaxed, dropped catches, and bowled no-balls. They let the sixth wicket pair of Deep Dasgupta and Laxmi Ratan Shukla counter attack and add 120 runs to bring East back into the contest.
After having taken his side out of troubled waters and having just hit Sairaj Bahutule for a mammoth six over mid-wicket, Shukla did something that did not impress his coach much. He went for a replay of the shot, and missed the ball by a whale of a distance. Parthiv Patel completed an easy stumping. “After having made a comeback, had senior players such as Shukla and Dasgupta stayed till the end, things would have been different. Especially, with the pitch still playing good for the batters,” said coach Paras Mhambrey. As often happens, one thing led to another, and East lost three quick wickets to be left tottering at 9-176. Trail by seven in the first innings, they are 189 ahead. “Realistically speaking, I will be happy if we can get to 200,” said Mhambrey.
Earlier, Zaheer Khan bowled a fiery spell with the new ball, and but for dropped catches, would have six wickets to his name, instead of four that he has. The most prized one of them being Sourav Ganguly, first ball. Khan bowled a full in-swinging delivery, similar to the one in first innings, but this time Ganguly managed to get a pad in way of the stumps. Zaheer got both the openers, Arindam Das fell prey to the away going delivery, while SS Das bat-padded the in-coming one. Resuming the day at 5-61, West managed the slender lead, thanks largely to sensible batting from Parthiv Patel, and some late-order hitting from Zaheer. Patel managed the short pitch bowling fairly well, pulling Ganguly, and Ranadeep Bose, getting right on the top of the bounce.
He finally fell to a combination of SS Lahiri’s off spin and a diving forward catch by Ganguly in the slips. Patel scored 43. Zaheer hit two sixes and two fours in his unbeaten 28.
East Zone Ist innings: 150
West Zone Ist innings: (overnight 61/5 in 32.5 overs): A Christian c A Das b Ganguly 9, D Jadhav lbw Ganguly 15, W Jaffer b R.Bose 19, J Martin lbw Paul 0, N Patel c Deepdas Gupta b Lahiri 24, R Patel lbw Ganguly 1, P Patel c Ganguly b Lahiri 43, R Powar c Aarindam Das b Lahiri 6, S Bahutule c Sarwanan b Lahiri 0, Z Khan not out 28, M Patel c Sanyal b Nadeem 3, Extras (b-3, lb-4, nb-2) 9, Total (all out in 64.0 overs) 157.
FoW: 1-32, 2-33, 3-36, 4-56, 5-57, 6-96, 7-110, 8-114, 9-139.
Bowling: SS Paul 16-5-21-1, R Bose 12-1-34-1, S Ganguly 19-5-45-3, S Nadeem 5-1-15-1, S Lahiri 12-3-35-4.
East Zone 2nd innings: A Das c P Patel b Z Khan 0, S S Das c Christian b Z Khan 13, V Sarwanan run out 11, R Gavaskar c P Patel b R Patel 13, S Ganguly lbw Z Khan 0, DDasgupta c Bahutule b R Powar 61, L R Shukla st P Patel b Bahutule 66, S Lahiri b Z Khan 0, S Nadeem st P Patel b Bahutule 5, R Bose not out 0, SS Paul not out 0,
Extras: (lb-3, nb-4) 7, Total (for 9 wickets in 56 overs) 176
FoW: 1-0, 2-23, 3-35, 4-35, 5-39, 6-159, 7-160, 8-176, 9-176.
Bowling: Khan 17-3-41-4, Patel 7-1-35-1, Bahutule 17-4-39-02, Patel 9-2-23-0, R Powar 6-0-35-1
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