Debasish Mohanty’s outstanding achievement of taking all tenwickets highlighted the opening day’s play in the Duleep Trophymatch between South Zone and East Zone at the Maharaja Bir Bikram CollegeStadium in Agartala on Thursday
Staff Reporter25-Jan-2001Debasish Mohanty’s outstanding achievement of taking all tenwickets highlighted the opening day’s play in the Duleep Trophymatch between South Zone and East Zone at the Maharaja Bir Bikram CollegeStadium in Agartala on Thursday. The 24-year-old Indianseam bowler cut through the formidable South Zone batting orderas they were shot out for 113 runs. The Orissa spearhead bowled unchangedfor remarkable figures of 19-5-46-10. But South Zone, with Javagal Srinathin great form, hit back and bowled out East Zonefor 124. Srinath took the first six wickets and finished with sixfor 32. South Zone in their second innings were three for no lossoff two deliveries before play was called off because of bad light.It was indeed an action packed day’s play with 20 wickets fallingfor 240 runs. South Zone skipper Rahul Dravid won the toss, optedto bat first, made a bad start and never recovered. The first togo was Sridharan Sriram who was leg before to Mohanty in the medium pacer’sthird over. Then in Mohanty’s fifth over, the other opener Nandakishore wasalso leg before.Dravid faced 14 balls without scoring but the next was his lastas he edged Mohanty to wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta. Two ballslater, Vijay Bhardwaj was out to the same combination for anotherduck and South Zone were tottering at 22 for four.The in form VVS Laxman held firm and he and wicketkeeper VST Naidutook the score to 37 but with the last ball of his ninth over,Mohanty had Naidu leg before. In the next over, Mohanty got theall important wicket of Laxman whom he bowled for 20. Laxman faced54 balls and hit three fours.Aashish Kapoor was fairly aggressive and hit three boundaries. Butwhen on 12, he was out to the last ball of Mohanty’s 13th overleaving South Zone groggy at 65 for seven.Srinath joined Sunil Joshi and the two figured in the bestpartnership of the innings by putting on 37 runs off 9.3 overs.Then the left handed Joshi was caught by Parida off Mohanty inthe bowler’s 18th over. Joshi faced 41 balls and hit five fours.The end of the innings came swiftly with Mohanty striking twice inhis 19th over. First, he bowled Srinath and three balls later, hitVenkatesh Prasad’s stumps. WD Balaji Rao remained not out with eight. TheSouth Zone innings lasted a shade over three hours and 37 overs.Mohanty became only the fifth Indian bowler to take all ten wickets. Hejoined the ranks of Subash Gupte (24.2-7-78-10) for President’s XI againstCombined XI in 1954-55, PM Chatterjee (19-11-20-10) for Bengal againstAssam in 1956-57, Pradeep Sundaram (22-5-78-10) for Rajasthan againstVidarbha in 1985-86 and Anil Kumble (26.3-9-74-10) for India againstPakistan in 1998-99. He surpassed the previous best haul in the DuleepTrophy – 9 for 55 by Baloo Gupte for West Zone against South Zone in the1962-63 final at Calcutta.When East Zone batted, they too found the going tough against Srinath. The31-year-old Indian spearhead was in his elements. First, with the last ballof his second over, he trapped skipper Shiv Sundar Sas leg before. In hisnext over, he bowled SS Parida for a duck. Then with the first ball of hisseventh over he had the in form SS Raul caught by Nandakishore. In the sameover, he had Rohan Gavaskar leg before and East Zone were, like South Zoneat this stage, tottering at 20 for four.The other opener P Jai Chandra who had been holding one end, was finallyleg before to Srinath for 18 off the last ball of his eighth over. And offthe first ball of his next over, Srinath had Dasgupta caught byNandakishore for a duck. East Zone at this stage were 33 for six withSrinath having taken all the wickets.Sukhbinder Singh joined his Assam skipper SZ Zuffri and the two initiated arecovery of sorts by adding 54 runs off 14 overs for the seventh wicket.Sukhbinder who dominated the stand was finally out to Sunil Joshi for 31,giving Nandakishore his third catch of the innings. He faced 49 balls andhit six fours.Veteran left arm spinner Utpal Chatterjee and Zuffri then continued therecovery process by adding 31 runs for the eighth wicket off nine oversbefore the former was stumped by Naidu off Kapoor for 15. By this time EastZone had taken the lead but the innings did not last long thereafter.First, Zuffri was caught by Laxman off Prasad for a fighting 30. He faced75 balls and hit five of them to the ropes. A little later, Mohanty was legbefore to Kapoor and the innings had come to an end with East Zone ahead by11 runs. They too batted a shade over three hours and 43.5 overs.