da luck： North Zone leads the Duleep Trophy table with ten points from twomatches, thanks largely to the batting heroics of Virender Shewag onSunday in their match against West Zone at the Punjab CA Stadium,Mohali, Chandigarh
Staff Reporter14-Jan-2001North Zone leads the Duleep Trophy table with ten points from twomatches, thanks largely to the batting heroics of Virender Shewag onSunday in their match against West Zone at the Punjab CA Stadium,Mohali, Chandigarh.As the best part of the match was ruined by heavy fog, North werechasing the West score of 284 for the all important first inningslead. Resuming at 217/5 with Shewag and Pankaj Dharmani at the crease,the North innings got off a troubled start when Iqbal Siddiqui hadDharmani trapped in front on his overnight score of 28. North werereduced to 233/6 leaving the match even stevens. Shewag along withSharandeep Singh put on 48 runs for the seventh wicket as Singh wasdismissed for 17. At 281/7 came in Gagandeep Singh and before he wasdismissed for three at 285, North had gained the first innings lead.Both the batsmen were claimed by SR Saxena.Ashish Nehra was the next to go LBW to Bahatule for a duck at 292. Thelast batsman Surendra Singh hit three boundaries in his innings of 15before being dismissed by Siddiqui. The North innings came to an endat 331, leaving Shewag with an unbeaten 162 off 190 balls. One six andtwenty-four boundaries flowed from his bat in his four hours and fiftyminutes stay at the wicket. Siddiqui was the best of the bowlers with31-4-116-5.West were 50/1 at the close of the match in their second innings.Wasim Jaffer remained unbeaten on 29 with NK Patel on 11. West Zonecollected three points from the match and have an aggregate of sixpoints from two games.