Kaif steers Central Zone to victory

Skipper Mohammed Kaif slammed an unbeaten 131 to steer Central Zone to an astounding five-wicket win over star-studded North Zone in the Deodhar Trophy limited overs league match in Pune on Saturday.

Put into bat first North Zone made 276 for the loss of six wickets in 50 overs.

In reply, Central Zone began on a cautious note putting on 46 runs for the opening wicket before gradually increasing the pace to overhaul the target with nine balls to spare.

It was solely due to the performance of Kaif that Central Zone was able to overhaul North's total despite North fielding big names like Virender Sehwag, Ajay Jadeja, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia, Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra.

Kaif, who came after the fall of the first wicket, stayed at the wicket for 176 minutes made 131 not out from 125 balls. He hit 16 boundaries as well.

Kaif built his innings with cheeky singles and twos before opening out. He got very good support from opening batsman Naman Ojha (59 off 51 balls with eight fours) and all-rounder Sanjay Bangar, who made 48 off 64 balls including five fours.

India's star bowlers medium pacer Ashish Nehra and Harbhajan Singh had a dismal outing for North Zone.

Nehra, who failed to take any wicket gave away 60 runs from his eight overs while Harbhajan Singh, who took a single wicket, comparatively fared better giving away 34 runs in his quota of 10 runs overs.

After North Zone lost an early wicket, their skipper Virender Sehwag came up with a quick fire 51 off just 44 balls. His knock contained 10 boundaries.

Yuvraj Singh, who came one down, failed to impress scoring just six runs off 14 balls.

The two star performers who were mainly responsible for North putting up a good total were Dinesh Mongia (90 off 112 balls with nine fours) Mithun Manhas (97 off 102 balls including 12 hits to the fence).

Central Zone medium pacer Rudra Pratap Singh claimed four wickets giving away 56 runs.

North Zone
G Gambhir c N Ojha b R P Singh                02
V Sehwag c N Ojha b J P Yadav                 51
Y Singh c and b R P Singh                     06
D Mongia not out                              90
A Jadeja lbw J P Yadav                        00
M Manhas c N Ojha b R P Singh                 97
H Singh C P Gupta b R P Singh                 03
A Ratra not out                               00
Extras (lb-12, nb-1, w-14)                    27
Total (for 6 wkts in 50 overs)               276
Fall of wickets: 1-9, 2-71, 3-73, 4-73, 5-263, 6-273.
Bowling: Rudra Pratap Singh 10-0-56-4, Harvinder Singh 10-1-61-0, Jai Prakash Yadav 10-2-22-2, Murali Karthik 10-0-48-0, Sanjay Bangar 4-0-35-0, Abbas Ali 3-0-22-0, Praveen Gupta 3-0-20-0.

Central Zone
A Pagnis lbw G Singh                      09
N Ojha lbw H Singh                        59
M Kaif not out                           131
A Ali run out                             14
S Raina lbw V Sehwag                      03
S Bangar C H singh b A Bhandari           48
J Prakash Yadav not out                   01
Extras: (8-lb, 2-nb, 2-w)                 12
Total: (for 5 wkts in 48.3 overs)        277
Fall of wickets: 1-46, 2-122, 3-145, 4-159, 5-273.
Bowling: Ashish Nehra 8-0-60-0, Amit Bhandari 7-0-50-1, Gagandeep Singh 9.3-1-58-1, Harbhajan Singh 10-0-34-1, Dinesh Mongia 10-1-39-0, Virendra Sehwag 4-0-28-1.