Awana rips through East

Parvinder Awana's six-wicket haul helped North Zone grab the day’s honours as they dismissed East Zone for 315 early on the second day and mustered 162 for three at close in the Duleep Trophy semifinal at the Ferozeshah Kotla here on Sunday.

Fortunes swung in favour of North, who the previous day had struggled to contain the determined East batsmen, notably Wriddhiman Saha and Ishank Jaggi. The visitors, though, could survive only 21 overs and add 57 runs on day two.

Resuming at 258 for four, East were in for improved stuff from the incisive North bowlers, who exploited the nippy conditions and movement off the pitch.

Awana (6/84), whose opening-day effort was fraught with eight no-balls, regained his rhythm and hit the stumps of overnight batsmen Biplab Samantray and centurion Saha (124) in quick succession.

SCORE BOARD

EAST ZONE (I Innings, O/n: 258/4): Dheeraj Jadhav b Awana 33, Manish Vardhan lbw Bhatia 21, Natraj Behera c & b Bhatia 0, Ishank Jaggi c Mishra b Patel 86, Wriddhiman Saha b Awana 124, Biplab Samantray b Awana 4, Anustup Majumdar c Bisht b Awana 24, Shahbaz Nadeem lbw Awana 5, Basant Mohanty c Mandeep b Bhatia 0, Abu Nechim Ahmed c Dewan b Awana 0, Ashoke Dinda (not out) 0. Extras (LB-9, NB-9) 18. Total (all out, 104.1 overs) 315.

Fall of wickets: 1-60, 2-60, 3-60, 4-254, 5-277, 6-286, 7-296, 8-303, 9-314.
Bowling: Pradeep Sangwan 19-7-41-0, Harshal Patel 24-5-92-1, Parvinder Awana 28.1-5-84-6, Rajat Bhatia 19-4-45-3, Amit Mishra 14-4-44-0.

NORTH ZONE (I Innings): Rahul Dewan lbw Mohanty 2, Shikhar Dhawan c Saha b Dinda 40, Mandeep Singh lbw Dinda 55, Mayank Sidhana (batting) 30, Paras Dogra (batting) 33. Extras (NB-2) 2. Total (for 3 wkts, 61 overs) 162.

Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-91, 3-112.
Bowling: Ashoke Dinda 19-1-62-2, Basant Mohanty 18-12-14-1, Abu Nechim Ahmed 12-2-36-0, Biplab Samantray 3-0-11-0, Shahbaz Nadeem 9-1-39-0.