Tendulkar, Kambli run riot

Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar scored an electrifying 199 while southpaw Vinod Kambli got an unbeaten ton as West Zone put themselves in a commanding position, at 384 for 4, on the opening day of their four-day Duleep Trophy match against East Zone at the Nehru Stadium in Pune on Thursday.

It was indeed a nostalgic moment for West Zone as the two school chums joined hands to virtually tear apart the mediocre East Zone bowling after Tendulkar won the toss and elect to bat first.

At stumps, Kambli was batting on 105 and Baroda's Connor Willims was batting on two.

At no point of time were the East Zone bowlers given a chance to settle down. East's seamer Debashish Mohanty, fresh from his record-equalling ten-wicket innings haul against South, in Agartala, had West opener Wasim Jaffer caught by Das Gupta, for zero with the scoreboard blank.

The other opener, former India wicketkeeper Nayan Mongia too did not last long as speedster Javed Zaman forced him to spoon a catch to Sukhwinder Singh.

Mongia's departure, for an individual score of seven, had West in some sort of trouble at 19 for two. But a face-saving 127-run partnership between Tendulkar and local lad Hrishikesh Kanitkar (42) put West on back on track.

Kanitkar departed soon after lunch which brought in southpaw Kambli. Both Tendulkar and Kambli played some fluent strokes, though the former was more dominant while playing his first Duleep Trophy match of the season.

However, Tendulkar, who was well set for his maiden double ton, fell to a brilliant running catch by substitute fielder Mridul Gupta in the extra-cover region off off-spinner Sanjay Raul in the 79th over of the day.

Scoreboard

West Zone (1st innings):
Wasim Jaffer c D Dasgupta b Mohanty 0
Nayan Mongia c S Singh b Zaman 7
Hrishikesh Kanitkar lbw S Singh 42
Sachin Tendulkar c sub M Gupta b Raul 199
Vinod Kambli batting 105
Jacob Martin batting 2
Extras (b-6, lb-8, nb-15): 29
Total (for 4 wickets in 90 over): 384
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-19, 3-146, 4-371
Bowling: Debashish Mohanty 15-6-47-1, Javed Zaman 14-2-78-1, P Jaichandra 5-1-17-0, Sukhwinder Singh 17-1-87-1, Utpal Chatterjee 21-6-68-0, Sanjay Raul 14-1-60-1, Rohan Gavaskar 4-0-13-0.

Mail Cricket Editor