Pacemen shine on dull day

The medium pacers ruled the roost on day one of the Duleep Trophy match between East and Central Zone, picking up 12 of the fourteen wickets to fall on Tuesday at the Captain Roop Singh stadium in Gwalior. Even before the hosts could celebrate the Jai Prakash Yadav powered demolition of their opposition, they had lost four wickets for 74 runs by the close of play.

Earlier in the day, East were skittled out for 194 as Yadav returned with a five-wicket haul.

The right-arm seamer, who's being talked about as an India prospect, rocked the East zone top order with three wickets first up.

East started with a solid partnership of 66 between Shiv Sunder das and Arindam Das, but once the former India opener was out lbw to Yadav, the batting collapsed.

Yadav grabbed the wickets of Arindam Das and wicket keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the 26th over to stall their effort.

Only Sanjib Sanyal, with an unbeaten 62, showed some spark. Sanyal played an attacking 65-ball innings, containing four boundaries and a six, to take East to 194. The team looked like folding up quickly after they had succumbed to 124 for six, but Sanyal, with some contribution from Sanjay Satpathy (21), resisted the strong bowling line-up.

The domination of the faster men was so complete that the two spinners, Murali Karthik and Kulamani Parida, bowled five overs and between them.

Central began on a bad note, as Faiz Fazal was caught behind the wicket in the very first over of the innings for no score. Shiv Shankar Paul, who claimed the wicket, was also able to induce an edge from the calm Sanjay Bangar in the next over.

He also took the wicket of youngster Suresh Raina to return with figures of three for 11.

The Jason Gillespie look alike, Ranadeb Bose, scalped the most prized wicket that of Central Zone captain and India player Mohammed Kaif for 31. Kaif and Raina had tried to pull the team out of trouble with a 51-run stand for the third wicket, before they were dismissed in consecutive overs to leave the team struggling at 74 for four.

Syed Abbas Ali (7) and Niraj Ozha (0) were the unbeaten batsman when play was called off due to bad light.