South Zone pacers produced a stellar performance to restrict West Zone to 129 for 7 on the second day of the Duleep Trophy final on Thursday, helping their team regain some of the lost ground.
West still trails South by 84 runs. Earlier, South’s team was bundled out for 213 runs in the first innings. Once Prithvi Shaw and Harvik Desai took the West to 97 for 1, they looked to accelerate and the conditions continued to get a little better.
Shaw was quite visible during that phase. The 23-year-old, in his inimitable style, smashed the southern pacers with a series of scintillating shots. Vidavath Kaverappa pitches the ball on his driving arc which is followed by a brilliant cover drive. Vasuki Kaushik slightly overpitched a ball and Shaw produced a straight drive that is now patented by the Mumbai School of Batting run by Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar.
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Vidwath’s ball that swung in towards Shaw’s pads got a lovely flick, an opening wrist giving it power and direction.
Three shots were enough to revalidate the class this young man has.
It was clear that the South’s bowlers would have to do something extraordinary to break the second wicket partnership. Perhaps, the 65-minute rain break in the second session gave South a chance to take a step back and rethink their strategies.
Their bowlers hit the ground after the break with a marked difference in approach. Vaishakh Vijayakumar came from all around the wicket to trouble both Shaw and Harwick with short-pitched deliveries.
The West’s batsmen seemed to have caught the catch inadvertently and their response was nervous. Shaw, by his own admission, was forced to play the exact same shot by Vaisakh, a reluctant player of the upper cut. But the ball was too close to his body and there was not enough room for his execution.
The half-paced shot had neither height nor distance and ended up in the hands of Vidwath at third man. He played a brilliant inning of 65 off 9 balls in 101 balls.
This strategy paid off for Vidwath at the other end as the batsmen tried to take runs off him. Unlike his teammate, Vidwath opted to bowl full length.
Suryakumar Yadav seems to have already made a plan in his mind to play T20 brand of cricket here. Suryakumar could have dismissed Vaisakh but Sai Kishore failed to get his top pull over mid-wicket.
However, his stay came to an end very soon. The Mumbaikar could not deny Vidwath’s ball, which was just a short distance away from the good length. Vidwath soon trapped Sarfaraz Khan at zero with a full ball as the batsman played around it.
Once half of the batting unit was out, it was left to Cheteshwar Pujara to manage the West’s innings and get closer to the South’s total. But the man who has written many escape stories, failed to live up to a single story this time. R Samarth kept Pujara’s flick off Vidwath while West’s ship sank further.