Duleep Trophy 2014-15 Semi-final East Zone vs South Zone: Laxmi Shukla’s strikes bring East Zone back after Robin Uthappa’s ton

By Sandipan Banerjee

Oct 22, 2014

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Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ashok Dinda, Rana Dutta brought East Zone back in the Duleep Trophy 2014-15 semi-final after Robin Uthappa made his 15th First class hundred. West Zone were cursing at one point when Manish Pandey and Uthappa were batting in full flow. Rana Dutta broke the partnership. After that, Shukla and Monhaty and Dinda rattled the South Zone batting with their seam bowling. Shukla took four for 44 whereas Ashok Dinda and Rana Dutta chipped in with two late wickets. South Zone lost seven wickets for 81 runs in the the post tea session.

Earlier South zone made a steady start in the second semi-final at Lahli, Rohtak after East captain Manoj Tiwary won the toss and decided to bowl first. East Zone fielded a strong pace attack in this match which comprised of Ashok Dinda, Varun Aaron, Basant Mohanty and Rana Dutta and Shukla.

The kay battle of this game is expected between East pacers vs South Batsmen. Vinay Kumar led team have class batsmen likes of Baba Aparajith, Uthappa, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Dinesh Karthik on their ranks. And on the first session of Day one, South openers lived up to their reputations. Both Uthappa and Rahul handled the East pace attack brilliantly on a difficult pitch. Though Uthappa was dropped early at the slips by Sudip Chatterjee of the bowling of Ashok Dinda. That was the only chance they had given in the first half. Both batsmen applied themselves on the wicket and showed a lot of patience.

South Zone lost it’s first wicket in when Shukla bowled an excellent in-swinger to Rahul which castled his stumps. And that was the only success for East bowlers in the morning session. Karun Nair came after the fall of Rahul’s wicket to join Uthappa. In the post Tea season, At lunch South Reach  reached 63 for one both of them batted freely, specially Uthappa was quite aggressive. Shukla got rid of Nair. Pandey came at number four to replace him. At Tea South reached 155 for two. In the last session of the day, Pandey threw his wicket away with a rash shot and Uthappa got out to Dutta. After that there was a procession of South Zone wickets. They finish the day with the score of 236 for nine.

East Zone would like to capitalize this opportunity when they will come out to bat on second day. Whereas South Zone bowlers need to restrict the opponents with minimum damage.

Brief scores:

South Zone 236 for 9 (Robin Uthappa 120, Karun Nair 32; Laxmi Ratan Shukla 4 for 44) vs East Zone.

(Sandipan Banerjee is a reporter at CricketCountry. Cricket has been the biggest passion for him since his childhood. So, when it came to choosing his career, he chose to turn his passion into his profession. Apart from cricket he likes mountain trekking, river rafting and photography. His twitter handle is @im_sandipan)