North Zone dominated by bowlers’ performance after Sindhu and Harshit’s century
Centuries from Nishant Sindhu and Harshit Rana helped North Zone post a mammoth 540 for eight in the first innings on the second day of the Duleep Trophy quarterfinal here, laying a good foundation for their bowlers to put pressure on Northeast Zone. Northeast Zone, trailing by 475 runs, scored 65 runs for the loss of three wickets when play was stopped due to rain and bad light. The big score for North Zone was contributed by Sindhu, who comfortably converted last night’s score of 76 for her third first-class hundred. He played an innings of 150 runs in which he faced 245 balls and hit 18 fours and three sixes.
Although Sindhu’s partner Pulkit Narang was dismissed in the first hour, there was no respite for the North East as Harshit Rana (122 not out, 86 balls, 12 fours and nine sixes) helped the team to increase the score at the same run rate.In the Indian Premier League, Sindhu is signed with Chennai Super Kings and Rana is signed with Kolkata Knight Riders. The North East bowlers were getting some help from the pitch on the first day but the first two sessions of the day were sunny which did not help them. Delhi youngster Rana is being touted as an emerging fast bowling talent but he impressed with the bat on Thursday. It has to be admitted that North East does not have a top-class bowling attack and Rana took full advantage of the opportunity to bring up his maiden first-class century in just 70 balls.
This was also the third century of North’s innings in which Dhruv Shorey also scored a hundred. Rana and Sindhu added 104 runs for the eighth wicket in just 17 overs. Sindhu fell victim to left-arm spinner Imliwati Lematur when the score was 476 while Rana and Siddharth Kaul stood at the crease.Uttar scored 64 runs in seven overs and took the score to more than 500 runs, out of which 55 runs were scored by Rana. Northeast got some respite from the rain but the North’s bowlers sent their top-order to the pavilion in the final session.
