SS Paul pushes North Zone on back foot

East Zone pacers Shib Shankar Paul (4/60) and Debasis Mohanty (2/28) shared six wickets together to push back last year’s winners North Zone after restricting them to 260 for 7 on the first day of the Duleep Trophy match played at the Madhav Rao Scindia stadium here on Monday.

North was heading for a fall down after East’s Paul came up with a fiery opening spell. Paul castled Chopra’s off-stump. Goel followed next while edging the ball on to his stumps while the other opener Dhawan was caught off Mohanty’s bowling leaving North Zone reeling on 28 for three.

The North’s top order totally failed against some hard bowling effort by East's bowlers on a placid track led by Shib Shankar Paul, Debasis Mohanty and Ranadeb Bose. Kaul and Chetanya Nanda were unbeaten on 40 and 0 respectively at the close of play.

North got some resistance after their skipper Mithun Manhas combined well with Yashpal Singh to add 54 runs for the fourth wicket. North, who elected to bat, found both the openers Akash Chopra and Shikhar Dhawan struggling against some tight bowling by Easts’ medium pacers.

The opening duo could only put up 20 runs in 18 overs before Paul got rid of seasoned Chopra in the19th over, bowling him out with an intimidating in-swinger.

Yashpal Singh was going well but got caught behind by Das off Paul after scoring 25. Delhi’s crisis man Rajat Bhatia joined the skipper in the middle and both added 79 runs for the fifth wicket before he was caught at long-off by S S Das at the score of 24.

North was 174-5 after the post lunch session with captain Manhas was unbeaten on 88 and Uday Kaul on 7. But Manhas departed at the same score after he was caught at long-off by substitute S Sarkar on off spinner Niranjan Behra’s delivery just after the tea break.

Manhas 131-ball stay in the wicket was studded with 13 fours and a big heave. Later, Kaul and Amit Mishra put on 76 runs for the seventh wicket. Mishra scored 52 runs inclusive of seven fours and a six off 86 balls before Wriddhman Saha brilliantly caught him off Paul’s delivery at deep third man.

North Zone First innings:

A. Chopra b Paul 10, S. Dhawan c H. Das b Mohanty 18, K. Goel b Paul 0, M. Manhas c sub (Sourav Sarkar) b Behera 88, Yashpal Singh c H. Das b Paul 25, R. Bhatia c S. S. Das b Mohanty 24, U. Kaul (batting) 40, A. Mishra c W. Saha b Paul 52, C. Nanda (batting) 0

Extras: 3 (nb-3) Total: 260 for seven wickets in 90 overs Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-28, 3-28, 4-82, 5-161, 6-183, 7-259. East Zone bowling: Mohanty 16-9-28-2, Bose 17-2-49-0, Paul 21-6-60-4, Saha 16-2-75-0, Behera 17-1-38-1, Majumdar 3-0-10-0.