Duleep Trophy: Murasingh shines for East Zone, Shorey stars with century for North Zone

Bengaluru, June 28 (IANS) Tripura seamer Manisankar Murasingh picked a five-wicket haul to shine for East Zone in their Duleep Trophy quarterfinal match against Central Zone at Alur Cricket Ground on Wednesday.

In the second quarterfinal, Delhi batter Dhruv Shorey starred with a fine 135 for North Zone to push North East Zone on backfoot at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

At Alur, Murasingh picked his 13th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket and was the driving force behind East Zone bowling out Central Zone for just 182. By the end of day’s play, East Zone lost opening pair of captain Abhimanyu Easwaran for a golden duck and Shantanu Mishra for six.

Sudip Gharami and Shahbaz Nadeem, coming in as nightwatchman, took East Zone to 32/2 at stumps, trailing Central Zone by 150 runs. Central Zone openers Vivek Singh and Himanshu Mantri had a 39-run opening partnership, before Murasingh castled the former.

Pacer Ishan Porel joined in by trapping Kunal Chandela lbw, followed by Mantri being run-out in a mix-up and Shubham Sharma being caught out off Shahbaz. Rinku Singh and Upendra Yadav tried to resurrect the inning with a 61-run stand for the fifth wicket, but the duo and Saransh Jain fell before tea.

Post tea, Murasingh took two more scalps to complete his five-wicket haul while Shahbaz took out last man Yash Thakur to end Central Zone’s innings on 182. Avesh Khan came out and trapped Easwaran as well as Mishra lbw to bring East Zone back in the game till stumps came.

At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Shorey hit his 11th century first-class cricket, aided by 22 fours against the North East Zone bowling line-up. He was also supported by young wicketkeeper-batter Nishant Sindhu, a member of India’s 2022 U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup winning team.

Sindhu was unbeaten on 76 at the end of day one’s play, while sharing a crucial 80-run partnership with Shorey. Shorey began by sharing an 80-run partnership with his opening partner Prashant Chopra, before Jotin Pheiroijam castled the latter.

Ankit Kalsi was caught behind for a golden duck, so was Ankit Kumar for just nine. Prabhsimran Singh made 31 before being dismissed by Imliwati, while captain Jayant Yadav was trapped lbw for a two-ball duck.

In between, Shorey and Sindhu made merry to push North Zone above 300. Though Shorey fell for 135, Sindhu remained till the end on stumps in an unbroken 64-run partnership with Pulkit Narang, who is 23 not out.

Brief Scores: North Zone 306/6 in 87 overs (Dhruv Shorey 135, Nishant Sindhu not out) against North East Zone

East Zone 32/2 in 12 overs (Sudip Kumar Gharami 19 not out; Avesh Khan 2/13) trail Central Zone 182 all out in 71.4 overs (Rinku Singh 38; Manisankar Murasingh 5/42) by 150 runs

--IANS nr/cs