Classy Rahul leads South Zone's charge

NEW DELHI: The idea of scheduling the Duleep Trophy upfront in the domestic season was to give fringe players a chance to prove themselves for the higher level early in the season. Yet, the final between South Zone and Central Zone looked like turning competitive only on the second morning when South skipper Vinay Kumar gobbled up Central's tale.

And the momentum was carried forward by the talk of the day, KL Rahul and Robin Uthappa. The two in-form Karanataka batsmen came out with a clear intent of dominating the Central bowling led by medium-pacers Pankaj Singh and Ishwar Pandey.

While Uthappa would be rueing missing out on a big one after playing Jalaj Saxena's off-spinner across the line and getting trapped in front for 80, Rahul showed no mercy to the bowlers.

With national selectors watching the action, Rahul struck a classy, unbeaten 168 (205b, 18x4s, 2x6s), taking South into a position of strength. South ended the day with a 32-run lead with six wickets remaining.

Rahul summed up the significance of the knock nicely. "After batting on a difficult track in Lahli (in the semis), I realised that you need to score big once you are in on an easy pitch."

Rahul stayed true to his words and Central now have a mountain to climb in the game. While Rahul claimed he wasn't aware that the selectors were around, the big, lumbering frame of Pankaj Singh woke up rather late in the day. Trying to fight the 'unlucky' ghosts of England away, Pankaj triggered a mini middle-order collapse with a fine spell of reverse swing. Unfortunately for Central Zone, Pankaj got his rhythm going when the scoreboard was reading 2311. He found the edge of Baba Aparajith's bat before getting Dinesh Karthik (0) leg-before with an indipper. R Prasanna fell soon at 233.

"There wasn't much help from the pitch. Once the ball was old, I had to bend my back a lot more and put more pace so that it aides reverse swing," Pankaj said.

Brief scores: South Zone 308 for 4 (Rahul 168 n.o., Uthappa 80; Pankaj 3-55) lead Central Zone 276 (Bist 79) by 32 runs

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=Vinay Kumar,Robin Uthappa,KL Rahul,Ishwar Pandey,Duleep Trophy final

Stay updated on the go with The Times of India's mobile apps. Click here to download it for your device.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Classy Rahul leads South Zone's charge

Dengan url

http://bijikacang.blogspot.com/2014/11/classy-rahul-leads-south-zones-charge.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Classy Rahul leads South Zone's charge

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Classy Rahul leads South Zone's charge

sebagai sumbernya