Perfect Ten on Mohanty’s Day Out

At stumps, South Zone were three for no loss in their second essay, with S Sriram (2) and V V S Laxman (1) in the middle.

Earlier, South skipper Rahul Dravid won the toss and elected to bat but Test discard Mohanty capitalised on the low bounce of a track which looked under-prepared for a four-day contest to put paid to his hopes of an ambitious total.

The Orissa swing bowler, who has looked impressive this season, returned dream figures of 19-5-46-10, shattering a 39-year-old record, to end South Zone’s innings 25 minutes after the lunch break.

Mohanty eclipsed the previous record of D N Gupta who had taken nine for 55 in a Duleep Trophy match between East Zone and North Zone in 1962.

Sunil Joshi (32), Laxman (20), Aashish Kapoor (12) and Srinath (11) were the only South Zone batsmen to reach double figures.

Three of South Zone batsmen – Dravid, Vijay Bharadwaj and Venkatesh Prasad – failed to open their account, as their star-studded batting line-up folded in only 37 overs.

East Zone began their reply in an equally disastrous fashion, losing India opener Sivsundar Das (2), experienced Rashmi Ranjan Parida (0) and Sanjay Raul (8) cheaply. Srinath, who bowled intelligently pitching the ball upto the batsmen, took all the three wickets.

The hosts’ miseries compounded when Srinath trapped P Jaychandran (18) and Rohan Gavaskar (0) leg before. With half of their side in the pavilion, East were tottering at 31 for five at the tea break.

Soon after the resumption, Srinath again spewed venom getting rid of Deep Dasgupta.

But the only purple patch of the East innings came next, as Zakaria Zafri and Sukhwinder Singh mixed caution with aggression to keep the South bowlers at bay.

Taking advantage of Srinath’s brief absence from the field following a minor ankle injury, the duo picked up useful runs hitting Aashish Kapoor and Balaji Rao all around the wicket.

But the brief batting sparkle came to an abrupt end as Zafri (30: 5×4) gave a simple catch to Laxman at gully, after putting on 54 invaluable runs for the seventh wicket with Sukhwinder, who finally departed with the score reading 118, as East finished their knock 11 runs ahead of South total.

Scoreboard:

SOUTH ZONE (1st Innings): S Sriram lbw Mohanty 6; N Nandakishore lbw Mohanty 8; V V S Laxman b Mohanty 20; R Dravid c Dasgupta b Mohanty 0; V Bharadwaj c Dasgupta b Mohanty 0; T Naidu lbw Mohanty 5; S Joshi c Parida b Mohanty 32; A Kapoor lbw Mohanty 12; Srinath b Mohanty 11; Balaji Rao not out 8; V Prasad b Mohanty 0; Extras (b-2, lb-2, nb-6, w-1): 11; Total: 113
Fall of wickets: 1-14, 2-16, 3-22, 4-22, 5-37, 6-49,7-65, 8-102, 9-113.
Bowling: Mohanty 19-5-46-10, Zafri 15-4 47-0, Jaychandra 3-0-16-0.

EAST ZONE:S Das lbw Srinath 2, P Jai Chandra lbw Srinath 18, R Parida b Srinath 0, S Raul c Nandakishore b Srinath 8, R Gavaskar lbw Srinath 0, S Zuffri c Laxman b Prasad 30, D Dasgupta c Nandakishore b Srinath 0, Sukhbinder Singh c Nandakishore b Joshi 31, U Chatterjee st Naidu b Kapoor 15, D Mohanty lbw Kapoor 2, J Zaman not out 4; Extras: (b 7, lb 1, w 1, nb 5) 14. Total: (all out, 43.5 overs) 124
Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-8, 3-20, 4-20, 5-31, 6-33, 7-87, 8-118, 9-120
Bowling: Srinath 13-2-32-6, Prasad 12-4-28-1, Joshi 8-0-22-1, Kapoor 6.5-2-20-2, Balaji Rao 4-0-14-0
SOUTH ZONE:S Sriram not out 3, A Nandakishore not out 0; Extras: 0. Total: (for no loss, 0.2 overs) 3
Bowling: Mohanty 0.2-0-3-0