Jaffer heroics in vain, West concede lead

The tailenders hung around for a while and the West Zone first innings culminated at 367, conceding a 101-run lead to North. With the title all but assured, North further consolidated their position and were 99 for two in their second innings at close, an overall lead of 201 with eight wickets in hand.

Robin, who picked up 5-84 in the semi-final against Central Zone at Guwahati this year, had his tournament-best figures of 6-63 today. Knowing Kambli’s penchant for pull and hook, Robin bowled a few of quick bouncers and followed them up by a slow one. Kambli was lulled into the pull shot but all he could do was to bottom edge to the ‘keeper Dahiya. Pathik Patel was clueless to Robin’s away swinger and Paras Mhambrey was beaten on the shuffle. All of a sudden, West slumped to 254 for six.

All the while, centurion Wasim Jaffer stood watching from the other end. He was still there when the last wicket fell to carry his bat through the West innings. He is the second batsman ever to have done that in a Duleep Trophy match. Jaffer’s defiant knock of 173 spanned 613 minutes and he faced 431 balls, with 22 boundaries gracing his knock.

Another man who held his head high today was the North ‘keeper Vijay Dahiya. He did not concede a single bye, and on top of it held five catches. Dahiya was an excellent backup to Robin’s pace.

Scoreboard

North Zone (1st innings): 468
West Zone (1st innings): Wasim Jaffer not out 173, Connor Williams c Dahiya b Robin (Jr) 21, Abhijit Kale c Sehwag b Robin (Jr) 30, Amol Muzumdar lbw Sodhi 52, Vinod Kambli c Dahiya b Robin (Jr) 14, Pathik Patel c Dahiya b Robin (Jr) 0, Paras Mhambrey lbw Robin (Jr) 4, Iqbal Siddique c Dahiya b Bhandari 20, Zahir Khan c Rathore b Navdeep 1, Nilesh Kulkarni c Dahiya b Robin (Jr) 24, Bhavin Mehta c Dani b Navdeep 5; Extras (nb16, lb 6, w1) 23.
Total (all out in 148 overs): 367
Fall of wickets: 1-47 (Williams), 2-113 (Kale), 3-218 (Muzumdar), 4-242 (Kambli), 5-247 (Patel), 6-254 (Mhambrey), 7-291 (Siddique), 8-297 (Zahir), 9-348 (Kulkarni).
Bowling: Bhandari 34-5-111-1, Robin (Jr) 34-13-63-6, Navdeep 38-12-89-2, Chopra 22-6-42-0, Sodhi 17-6-47-1, Sehwag 3-0-9-0

North Zone (2nd innings): Ashu Dani lbw Mhambrey 4, Vikram Rathore c & b Kulkarni 41, Reetinder Sodhi batting 40, Pankaj Dharmani batting 9; Extras (lb 4, nb 2): 6.
Total (for two wickets, in 24 overs) 99
Fall of wickets: 1-13 (Dani), 2-73 (Rathore).
Bowling: Mhambrey 8-2-21-1, Zahir 5-0-29-0, Siddique 6-1-27-0, Kulkarni 4-1-6-1, Kambli 1-0-12-0