Left-arm spinner Arjun Shetty took eight for 60 as President’s XI acquitted themselves with great credit on the opening day of their two-day SAS memorial inter-zonal (under-22) cricket tournament tie against Combined City XI on Monday.

The inter-zonal meet resumed after a two-week break to facilitate the conduct of the KSCA all-India invitation tournament -- the final of which will begin at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday -- and Shetty was straightaway in his elements, weaving a web that Combined City found hard to find a way out of.

Only Nikhil Kashyap, who made 93 (198b, 11x4, 3x6) was in any kind of batting form as Shetty had a field day, primarily responsible for City XI’s modest 227 all out. In response, President’s XI had raced to 61 for one in just 14 overs by the close.

Elsewhere, Nayeem Indikar struck an undefeated 145 to single-handedly take credit for Raichur Zone posting 244 against Dharwad Zone, who then slumped to 63 for three, K Naveen picking up all three sticks.

Tejas Wagle and S Prajwal both came up with identical knocks of 115 to help Bangalore Zone take command against Mangalore Zone. Bangalore Zone finished at 422 for seven from their 90 overs.

Brief scores: Combined City XI: 227 all out in 74 overs (Nikhil Kashyap 93, Pawan Deshpande 34, Raghavendra Rao 28; Arjun Shetty 8-60) vs President's XI: 60/1 in 14 overs (Anupam Kumar 37 n.o.).

Mysore Zone: 196 all out in 52.5 overs (Nirmit Nityanand 39, Karthik Raghavan 76; HK Girish 3-28, Abilash 2-12) vs Tumkur Zone: 129/4 in 36 overs (Vinay 32, Abilash M 35 n.o.; Aditya B Sagar 3-20).

Raichur Zone: 244 all out in 69.5 overs (Nayeem Indikar 145 n.o., Bharath Khane 29; Dattraya Patel 3-44, Sarfaraz Khatib 2-28, Raju Kalal 2-40, Anand Kammar 3-56) vs Dharwad Zone: 63/3 in 23 overs (K Naveen 3-23).
Bangalore Zone: 422/7 in 90 overs (KV Bharath 41, Stalin Hoover 70, Tejas Wagle 115, S Prajwal 115; Farooqui Zahoor 4-95) vs Mangalore Zone.