West Zone has one foot in the final
The Hindu
West pressed home its advantage in its second innings and set Central a humongous target of 501
The first two days of the Duleep Trophy semifinals between West Zone and Central Zone were exciting and action-packed. A total of 23 wickets fell across the two days, Prithvi Shaw dazzled with a half-century and century with West Zone taking the crucial first-innings lead.
The third day’s play on Saturday was less intense in comparison as West pressed home its advantage in its second innings and set Central a humongous target of 501.
At stumps on a penultimate day at the Sri Ramakrishna College ground, Central was 33 for two and barring a miracle on the final day, West have all but sealed a place in the final.
Resuming at 130 for three, West was bowled out for 371 in the second innings with most batters chipping in with valuable contributions as they piled on the agony for the Central bowlers.
Shaw (142, 140b, 15x4, 4x6), who resumed on 104, started the day aggressively with a six, over long-on against Kartikeya before finding three consecutive boundaries off Aniket Choudhary. It took a brilliant effort from Yash Dubey, diving to his right at short-midwicket to remove Shaw eight short of a well-deserved 150 with Central skipper Karan Sharma providing the breakthrough.
At the other end, Armaan Jaffer looked solid playing some fine shots through the leg side including two flicks of Gourav Yadav to get to 49. However, in a hurry to get to his half-century the Mumbai batter mistimed a lofted shot over leg side to give a simple catch to Dubey at short midwicket off Karan.
Then Het Patel (67) started positively hitting Karan for three boundaries before he switched to cautious mode. The Gujarat wicketkeeper made a patient half-century while batting out time to try and put the game beyond the reach of the opposition.
Daniel Quizon is the latest to join the band of leaders. The Philippines player beat Russian Artion Stribuk on the third board in the ninth round at the Gift City Club on Tuesday. The four overnight leaders – Kazybek Nogerbek of Kazakhstan, Russia’s Rudik Makarian, Mamikon Gharibyan of Armenia, and Colombia’s Jose Gabriel Cardoso – were featured in the drawn games on the top two boards.