Mishra sends East for a spin

With this win, North, along with South and East, have five points, while West earned four with a win against South and Central Zone.

North made a modest start with openers Aakash Chopra (60) and Gautam Gambhir (23) putting on 59 for the opening wicket before Ghambir was run out brilliantly by Shiv Sundar Das. Then North had to depend upon Chopra, Manhas and Ajay Ratra (28).

Manhas was involved in three useful partnerships – 68 with Chopra for the second wicket, 53 with Ratra for the sixth wicket and 54 with Sangram Singh (28) for the fifth wicket. East, which beat West with consummate ease in their first match, were at a loss against North as they started on a disastrous note.

They lost both their openers S S Das and M S Dhoni with only eight runs on the board after only eight balls were bowled in the innings.

Brief scores:

North Zone: 238 for 5 in 50 overs (Aakash Chopra 60, G Gambbir 23, M Manhas not out 77, Sangram Singh 28, A Ratra not out 28, Rohan Gavaskar 2 for 46).

East Zone: 171 (Debang Gandhi 36, S Das 29, P Mallick 22, S Das 42, A Bhandari 1-35, A Uniyal 1-28, Sarandeep Singh 1-28, R S Sodhi 1-31, Amit Mishra 5-28, M Manhas 1-28).

West beat South

Bangalore: Powered by a breezy knock of 122 by opener Connor Williams and a devastating spell by spinner Ramesh Powar, who scalped five wickets for 53 runs, West Zone beat South Zone by 29 runs in the Deodhar Trophy here.

Put into bat, West Zone piled up a respectable score of 295 for the loss of six wickets and bundled out South for 266, to pocket four points.

Brief scores:

West Zone: 295 for 6 (C Williams 122, Vinayak Mane 61, Hemang Badani 2/39). South Zone: 266 (A T Rayudu 73, Ronald Barrington 47, Ramesh Powar 5/53, Hrishikesh Kanitkar 3/44).