Mohanty bags record 10; Srinath 6

Lanky speedster Debasish Mohanty created a new tournament record as he captured all ten wickets to bundle out South Zone for a paltry 113 in their first innings in the Duleep Trophy match at Agartala on Thursday.

However, Javagal Srinath led the visitors' fightback, capturing six wickets for 32 runs, as South restricted East to 124 in their first innings on the opening day of the four-day match.

Srinath exploited favourable conditions to almost singlehandedly fashion his team's comeback on a day when 20 wickets fell, 17 of them to the quicker bowlers.

At stumps, South Zone were three for no loss in their second innings, with S Sriram (2) and V V S Laxman (1) in the middle.

Earlier, South skipper Rahul Dravid won the toss and elected to bat, but Test discard Mohanty capitalised on the low bounce of a track which looks under-prepared for a four-day contest to put paid to Dravid's hopes of an ambitious total.

The Orissa swing bowler, who has looked impressive this season, returned dream figures of 19-5-46-10, shattering a 39-year old record, to end South Zone's innings 25 minutes after the lunch break.

Mohanty eclipsed the previous record of D N Gupta, who had taken nine for 55 in a Duleep Trophy match between East Zone and North Zone in 1962.

Sunil Joshi (32), Laxman (20), Ashish Kapoor (12) and Srinath (11) were the only South Zone batsmen to reach double figures.

Mail Cricket Editor