It was a tale of two men, Manish Pandey (213, 303b, 13x4, 5x6) and Baba Aparajith (212, 351b, 17x4, 1x6), as South Zone took command on Day Two of their Duleep Trophy quarter-final against against the West here on Friday. The duo’s 330-run marathon effort meant South Zone ended the day at 553/7 in 152 overs.
It was a tale of two men, Manish Pandey (213, 303b, 13x4, 5x6) and Baba Aparajith (212, 351b, 17x4, 1x6), as South Zone took command on Day Two of their Duleep Trophy quarter-final against against the West here on Friday. The duo’s 330-run marathon effort meant South Zone ended the day at 553/7 in 152 overs. Pandey got a reprieve when he was a run short of his hundred. Wicketkeeper Rohit Motwani spilled the chance offered by the Karnataka batsman off Jaydev Unadkat despite a desperate dive. Pandey drove the next ball through the covers to reach his century while Aparajith hadn’t added a run to his overnight tally until then. The partnership, underlined by exhilarating stroke play, witnessed a pause when Pandey suffered a groin injury right after scoring his hundred and had to walk back retired hurt. Sandwiched between the resumption of the partnership were events that gave West a sniff of a comeback. Aparajith felt the heat as he remained on 99 for about 25 minutes before a misfield from Rakesh Dhruv at covers helped the Tamil Nadu batsman reach the 100-mark. C.M. Gautham, who had replaced Pandey, didn’t trouble the scorers as he was trapped by left-arm spinner Akshay Darekar. The return of Pandey at 333/5 ended the hopes of a West fightback. Aparajith brought up his double hundred with a couple to the third man fence and became the fourth player after Rakesh Parikh, Mohammed Azharuddin and Sanjay Manjrekar to score a double ton in his first match in the Duleep Trophy.
Scorecard
South Zone (1st innings): A. Reddy lbw b Unadkat 18, A. Mukund b Vahora 4, K.L. Rahul lbw bYusuf 6, B. Aparajith (run out) 212, M. Pandey lbw b Dhruv 213, C.M. Gautam lbw b Darekar 0, Rohan Prem c Dhruv b Vahora 35, R. Malolan (batting) 26, R. Vinay Kumar (batting) 19. Extras: 20 (pen5, b9, lb1, nb2, w3). Total (for 7 wkts, in 152 overs) 553 FoW: 1-20, 2-22, 3-52, 4-242, 5-333, 6-473, 7-521. Bowling: Unadkat 21-2-88-1, Vahora 18-5-36-2, Yusuf 22-3-62-1, Dhruv 42-3-163-1 (2w), Darekar 44-7-164-1 (2nb, 1w), Bawne 2-0-13-0, Waghmode 3-0-12-0
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