North Zone skipper Mithun Manhas did not enforce the follow-on and North, building on their 217-run first innings lead, had swelled their overall cushion to 326 at the end of day’s play. At stumps, opener Aakash Chopra and Manhas were batting on 56 and 12 respectively.

Earlier, North, resuming their first innings score of 260 for seven, were all out after adding another 100 to their overnight total.

Tailender C Nanda’s 58 (59b, 9x4) helped North reach a respectable score of 360. East players further helped North batsmen’s cause flooring at least four catches. Medium-pacer S S Paul (5/100) was the most successful bowler for East.

score board

NORTH ZONE (I Innings; O/n: 260/7): U Kaul c Arindam Das b Paul 48, Chaitanya Nanda b TS Saha 58, VS Malik b TS Saha 13, VRV Singh (not out) 20. Extras (NB-4) 4. Total (all out; 108 overs) 360.
Fall of wickets: 1-20 (Chopra), 2-28 (Goel), 3-28 (Dhawan), 4-82 (Yashpal Singh), 5-161 (Bhatia), 6-183 (Manhas), 7-260 (Mishra), 8-289 (Kaul), 9-314 (Malik).
Bowling: Mohanty 18-9-39-2, Bose 21-2-65-0, Paul 28-6-106-5, Saha 21-2-102-2, Behera 17-1-38-1. Majumdar 3-0-10-0.
EAST ZONE (I Innings): SS Das c Kaul b Singh 23, Arindam Das lbw Singh 7, AP Majumdar b Singh 8, WP Saha (not out) 56, M Vardhan lbw Singh 0, H Das b Singh 8, TS Saha c Nanda b Mishra 4, DS Mohanty b Mishra 8, RR Bose lbw Nanda, SS Paul c Dhawan b Nanda 0, N Behera (absent hurt). Extras (B-6, LB-2, NB-17) 25. Total (all out, 33.3 overs) 143.
Fall of wickets: 1-17 (Arindam Das), 2-34 (Majumdar), 3-69 (SS Das), 4-69 (Vardhan), 5-93 (H Das), 6-105 (TS Saha), 7-114 (Mohanty), 8-143 (Bose), 9-143 (Paul).
Bowling: VRV Singh 12-2-59-5, VS Malik 10-1-50-0, A Mishra 11-2-26-2, C Nanda 0.3-0-0-2.
NORTH ZONE (II Innings): S Dhawan lbw Mohanty 4, A Chopra (batting) 56, K Goel c H Das b Bose 34, M Manhas (batting) 12. Extras (LB-1, NB-2) 3. Total (for 2 wkts, 28 overs) 109.
Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Dhawan), 2-91 (Goel).
Bowling: DS Mohanty 5-0-15-1, RR Bose 8-2-31-1, TS Saha 9-1-44-0, SS Paul 4-2-8-0, Majumdar 2-0-10-0.