Rohan Gavaskar earns East precious points

A masterly knock of 146 by Rohan Gavaskar helped East Zone take home five points in their first outing in the Duleep Trophy this season. On the last day of the match between East and Central Zone at Green Park, Kanpur on Sunday, East got past the Central Zone score and took the vital first innings lead.

Resuming at 230/4 with another 192 runs required for the first innings lead, East got off to a bad start and were quickly reduced to 249/5, losing Rajiv Kumar bowled by Sriwastava for 25. What followed was a dominating sixth wicket partnership between Gavaskar and wicket keeper Deep Dasgupta. They put on 174 runs in 48.4 overs and took the East Zone score beyond Central's 421 before Murali Kartik had Dasgupta caught by Abhay Sharma for 72 at 423. Dasgupta's crucial innings lasted for 216 minutes as he faced 140 balls of which he struck nine to the fence.

Meanwhile, left handed Gavaskar was happy accumulating runs and making sure that East took the honours. Gavaskar struck the ball all around for 15 boundaries and 2 sixes off 295 balls in his innings that lasted a little over six and a half hours. Gavaskar was caught by substitute fielder Devendra Bundela off the bowling of Kulamani Parida with the East score reading 433 in the 122nd over.

East Zone batted on with Sukhbinder Singh making 29 off 66 balls (1 six, 4 fours) and were all out for 484 in the 145th over as the match was called off as a draw. Kulamani Parida took the bowling honours for Central with 44-13-126-3. Central took three points from the match and took their points tally to eight from two matches.