Deep Dasgupta hits unbeaten 106 for East

Opener Deep Dasgupta struck a patient ton as East Zone reached a comfortable 261 for four wickets on the opening day of the four-day Duleep trophy match against East Zone in Kolkata on Tuesday.

Dasgupta, struggling to retain his place in the West Indies-bound Indian team, scheduled to be selected on Thursday, played cautiously to remain unbeaten on 109 (362 mins, 278 b, 13x4) when stumps were drawn for the day at the Eden Gardens.

Laxmi Ratan Shukla (9) was the other not out batsman.

Dasgupta and fellow-Test opener Shiv Sunder Das (60, 152m, 116b, 11x4) gave a solid start to the East Zone innings, putting on 115 runs for the first wicket after their skipper Sanjay Raul won the toss and elected to bat.

The two batsmen had no difficulty in negotiating Central new ball bowlers Harvinder Singh and Sanjay Pande and took their team to 78 for no loss at lunch, before bringing up the hundred 17 minutes into the post-lunch session.

Das departed a little later when he was trapped leg before by veteran leggie Narendra Hirwani, who otherwise looked very insipid throughout the day.

Bengal lost another wicket soon after as Rashmi Ranjan Parida (5) gave a simple catch to J P Yadav off Pande.

Dasgupta and skipper Sanjay Raul (40) then added 104 runs for the third wicket before the Orissa batsman failed to negotiate offie Kulamani Parida and was caught behind the stumps by Rohit Jalani in the 74th over of the day.

Prabhanjan Mullick (16) retired hurt as he strained his muscle while pulling Hirwani. Subhomoy Das (9) was adjudged leg before to Parida (16-1-26-2).

West Zone pile up 334 for eight

Splendid batting by Wasim Jaffer, Nayan Mongia and Sairaj Bahutule helped West Zone pile up 334 for eight wickets on the first day of the four-day Duleep Trophy match against North Zone in Pune on Tuesday.

Electing to bat, West Zone lost its opener Connor Williams (7) within 23 minutes. However, Jaffer salvaged the position scoring 78 runs, including 13 boundaries off 104 balls.

He was ably assisted by Mongia and Bahutule, who both displayed impressive batting skills.

Mongia made 76 runs off 130 balls which was studded with one six and 14 boundaries. Unbeaten Bahutule also scored a well-made 66 off 88 balls with one six and 12 hits to the fence.

Captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar managed only 11 runs as he was sent back to the pavilion by Vineet Sharma. Altaf Merchant and Ramesh Powar failed to open their account while Vinod Kambli made 33 runs.

For North Zone, Mithun Minas claimed three wickets while Sarandeep Singh and Ashish Mehra got two wickets each.

Bahutule (66) and Irfan Pathan (7) were at the crease when stumps were drawn.

Mail Cricket Editor