On a day when bowlers called the shots, Lakshman shone with the bat as Mysore Zone reached a competitive total against President’s XI on the opening day of their two-day KSCA under-15 inter-zonal tournament tie here on Thursday.

Batting first, Mysore lost wickets at regular intervals as HS Adarsh and K Vamshidhar bowled a tidy spell. Adarsh bagged four wickets, while Vamshidhar accounted for three opposition batsmen as Mysore huffed and puffed to 191. But Lakshman comfortably played all the rival bowlers en route to his 94 off 167 balls. He hit 12 boundaries before perishing just six runs away from a well-deserved hundred.

President’s XI too struggled against Mysore bowlers as their four frontline batsmen had returned to the hut for 111 runs at close.

Brief scores:

Mysore Zone: 191 all out in 63.5 overs (Pavan 21, Lakshman 94; HS Adarsh 4-33, K Vamshidhar 3-54) vs President’s XI: 111/4 in 29 overs (Aman Raj (batting) 37, Pradeep 2-25)

Bangalore Zone: 178/6 in 67 vers (S Nirmal 45, Arun Pandey (batting) 55, KV Siddharth 47; Ritesh Bhatkal 3-47) vs Dharwad Zone 

Combined City XI: 139/6 in 54 overs (Shreyas Gopal 37, Nihal F Shilar 23, V Abhishek 29; VM Rasheed 2-35, Kiran Clinton 2-32, Gopal Shetty 2-23) vs Mangalore Zone

Bangalore City: 30/1 in 14 overs (Satish (batting)14, Rahul Raj (batting) 9) vs Raichur Zone: Match started late due to overnight rain.