Resuming on 300 for seven, Central Zone folded up for 333 but the Meerut paceman (5/48) polished off the top-four rival batsmen to reduce South to 65 for five.
The lower-middle and lower order batsmen, however, saved South Zone the blushes as gritty knocks from CM Gautam (52), R Ashwin (58), C Ganapathy (33) and R Vinay Kumar (44 batting) helped them reach 254 for eight in their first innings.
Shadab Jakati (0) was giving Vinay Kumar the company at stumps with the side still trailing Central Zone by 79 runs.
After Praveen’s fiery display, left-armer RP Singh (2/58) got into act and dismissed both Gautam and Ashwin to wrest back control over the match.
Vinay is now standing between Central Zone and first innings lead, which would be crucial to decide the outcome of the tie.
Earlier, Piyush Chawla missed out on a century but his unbeaten 90 helped Central Zone add 33 important runs to their overnight total of 300 for seven.
Piyush lost his partner Praveen (21), who could add just four runs to his overnight total, when he became a victim of Vinay Kumar.
Piyush added 20 more runs to the total but ran out of partners as Vinay took the last three wickets of the Central Zone to complete his five-wicket haul.
SCORE BOARD
CENTRAL ZONE (I Innings, 300/7): Tanmay Srivastava c Badrinath b Mithun 42, Jalaj Saxena b Mithun 7, Sanjay Bangar lbw Mithun 4, Mohammad Kaif c Pandey b Vinay Kumar 112, Suresh Raina c Ashwin b Jakati 22, Parvinder Singh c Karthik b Ganapathy 1, Naman Ojha c Karthik b Vinay Kumar 14, Piyush Chawla 90 (not out), Praveen Kumar c Uthappa b Vinay Kumar 21, RP Singh c Mukund b Vinay Kumar 7, Pankaj Singh b Vinay Kumar 1. Extras (LB-8, W-1, NB-3) 12. Total (all out, 100.5 overs) 333.
Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-31, 3-86, 4-125, 5-126, 6-154, 7-272, 8-307, 9-315.
Bowling: R Vinay Kumar 28.5-2-102-5, Abhimanyu Mithun 23-5-64-3, C Ganapathy 14.2-3-34-1, R Ashwin 18.4-2-70-0, Shadab Jakati 14-2-49-1, Abhinav Mukund 2-0-6-0.
SOUTH ZONE (I Innings): Robin Uthappa c Kaif b Praveen 19, Abhinav Mukund c Ojha b Praveen 13, KB Arun Karthik c Ojha b Praven 8, S Badrinath c Chawla b Praveen 9, Manish Pandey lbw b Pankaj Singh 15, Gautam CM lbw RP Singh 52, R Ashwin lbw RP Singh 58, C Ganapathy c Ojha b Praven 33, R Vinay Kumar (batting) 44, Shadab Jakati (batting) 0. Extras ( LB-2, W-1) 3. Total (for 8 wkts, 73 overs) 254.
Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-37, 3-46, 4-61, 5-65, 6-173, 7-176, 8-253.
Bowling: Praveen Kumar 17-5-48-5-1, RP Singh 18-5-58-2, Pankaj Singh 16-2-48-1, Sanjay Bangar 10-1-44-0, Piyush Chawla 9-0-45-0, Jalaj Saxena 3-1-9-0.
