The four-day Duleep Trophy match between East Zone and South ended in a tame draw as a brilliant 87-run knock by skipper Devang Gandhi saved the former from an unexpected collapse in the second innings.
East, who bowled out South for 331 to gain a first innings lead of 57 in the morning, made a shaky start in the second innings and lost four quick wickets for 33.
Gandhi and Rohan Gavaskar pushed the score to 109 when the latter was out for 37.
Gandhi and Laxmi Ratan Shukla added 37 runs for the sixth wicket before Shukla was out for 22 with scoreboard reading 146.
Gandhi hit ten boundaries and two sixes in his 87 runs.
Sunil Joshi claimed three wickets for 48 runs while Sreeshant and R Ramkumar took 2 for 47 and 2 for 68 respectively.
South Zone were seven for no loss in the second innings at close.
Earlier, Sourishish Lahiri took three wickets while Shiv Sunder Paul, Debashish Mohanty and Utpal Chatterjee shared two wickets each to dismiss South for 331.
East gained five points on the basis of the first innings lead while the South earned three.
Scoreboard
East Zone (1st innings): 388
South Zone (1st innings):
S Ramesh c Mohanty b Paul 57
R Barrington c Rajiv b Mohanty 15
S Sriram run out 2
Y Venugopalarao c and b Lahiri 41
MSK Prasad c Shukla b lahri 6
S Sharath c Mohanty b Paul 48
S Badrinath LBW b Chatterjee 9
S Joshi c sub b Mohanty 51
R Ramkumar b Chatterjee 30
NP Singh not out 39
Sreeshant c Rajiv b Lahiri 0
Extras: 33
Total: (all out in 135 overs) 331
Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-56, 3-90, 4-119, 5-130, 6-159, 7-249, 8-258, 9-330.
Bowling: Shiv Sunder Paul 34-11-72-2, Debashish Mohanty 20-5-49-2, Sourishish Lahiri 35-11-70-3, Utpal Chatterji 38-8-93-2, Rohan Gavaskar 7-1-24-0, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 1-1-0-0.
East Zone (2nd innings):
S S Dass c Sriram b Joshi 15
D Dasgupta LBW b NP Singh 0
A Dass run out 2
Rajiv Kumar lbw Sreeshant 6
D Gandhi st MSK Prasad b Joshi 87
L R Shukla c MSK Prasad b Joshi 22
R Gavaskar c MSK Prasad b Ramkumar 37
S Lahiri c Badrinath b Ramkumar 2
U Chatterjee b Sreeshant 16
S S Paul not out 3
D Mohanty not out 6
Extras: 20
Total: (for 9 wickets 72 overs) 216
Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-15, 3-29, 4-33, 5-109, 6-146, 7-169, 8-196, 9-215.
Bowling: N P Singh 8-4-11-1, Sreeshant 17-6-47-2, Y Venugopalarao 8-1-31-0, Sunil Joshi 19-4-48-3, R Ramkumar 20-4-68-2.
