Binny wreaks havoc as South march towards innings win; Central Zone shows supremacy

Lahli: All-rounder Stuart Binny tormented the East Zone batsmen with his controlled swing bowling as they lost as many as 14 wickets with South Zone marching towards a comprehensive innings victory at the end of second day in the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy.
Starting the day at 236 for nine South’s first innings ended at 264 with last pair of HS Sharath (6 no) and Abhimanyu Mithun (23) batting out the first hour.
The South bowlers then came out all guns blazing to skittle East for a paltry 84 as Binny was the pick of the bowlers with figures of four for 24 from 13 overs.
With a huge lead of 180 runs, South captain Ranganath Vinay Kumar decided to enforce the follow-on but East didn’t fare any better in the their second essay tottering at 30 for 4 when stumps were drawn.
With 150 runs still needed to avoid innings defeat, the manner in which Manoj Tiwary and company batted doesn’t inspire confidence of highest order. Binny again turned out to be the wrecker-in-chief as his dibbly dobbly swing bowling got him 3/7 in five overs.
The India all-rounder now has match-figures of 7/31 with two days of play still left. Another interesting turn of event was discarded India left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha bowling wearing half sleeves with an elbow potective gear.
Ojha got 3/9 as he polished off the tail.
On the first day, Laxmi Ratan Shukla exploited the conditions hitting the right length on a pitch that had fair amount of green, it was Binny’s turn to stick to the basics on the second day as he bowled good areas and got the ball to move both ways after pitching.
Binny pitched his deliveries on a drivable length and got it to move as none of the batsmen in the East Zone top-order were ready to cover the swing and ended up giving Manish Pandey, Lokesh Rahul and Karun Nair, some serious slip catching practice.
Only Wriddhiman Saha (0) was distinctly unlucky in the first innings as he suffered due to a howler from umpire Paschim Pathak, who had a bad day in office giving two poor decisions in the match.
It was a fuller delivery from Binny outside the off-stump and Saha was beaten trying to push at it. The replays indicated that the ball was not even near to the bat and glovesman Dinesh Karthik’s appeal was also muted but Pathak raised his finger.
None of the East batsmen could cross 20 and seven of them failed to reach even double digits in the first innings.
Rana Dutta (17) was the highest scorer. At the fag end of the day during the second innings, it seemed that the problems were not sorted out as Manoj.
In the other match in Mohali, Wicketkeeper-batsman Naman Ojha continued from where he left on the opening day to notch up his second double ton in first-class cricket this year to help Central Zone amass 538 on Day 2 of the four-day Duleep Trophy semi-final match against North Zone, here today.
In reply, North ended Thursday on 130 for two with skipper Gautam Gambhir on 68 and Yuvraj Singh on 25 battling it out.
But the day belonged to Ojha, who started on his overnight score of 122 to smash 217 runs – his second-highest first-class score after his unbeaten 219 against Australia A in July.
Madhya Pradesh batsman Ojha, who has played an ODI for India, struck 23 boundaries and 3 sixes in his seven-hour eight minutes stay at the crease to give the North bowlers a hard time.
Responding to the huge score, North lost early wickets with opener Jiwanjot Singh (2) and Virender Sehwag (32) departing early.
Standing in as captain for Harbhajan Singh, who missed the game due to viral fever, Gambhir then stuck it out with Yuvraj – unbeaten 70-run partnership – to keep North in the hunt.
North still trail by 408 runs in the first innings with 208 more required to save the follow-on. (PTI)