da wazamba： Recovering from a seemingly hopeless situation, North Zone defeatedCentral Zone by two wickets in a group B match of the inter-academycricket tournament for the Col
Staff Reporter30-Jun-2001Recovering from a seemingly hopeless situation, North Zone defeatedCentral Zone by two wickets in a group B match of the inter-academycricket tournament for the Col. Hemu Adhikari Trophy in Bangalore onSaturday. North, Central and West, the three teams in the group allended with one win and one defeat each. But on better run rate, Westqualified to meet East in the final on Monday.Electing to bat, Central Zone scored 205 for eight in 47 overs. Rainin the morning shortened the duration of the game. Opener AV Mann wasthe mainstay with a valuable 85. He faced 126 balls and hit six fours.He was involved in two fruitful partnerships. First, with M Mishra(28) he added 59 runs for the second wicket off 16.4 overs. Then withwicketkeeper NV Ojha (33) he put on 61 runs for the sixth wicket off5.4 overs. Mann was seventh out at 199 in the 46th over while Ojha hittwo fours and a six in facing only 23 balls. Kunal Lal and AbishekSharma took three wickets each for 35 and 43 runs respectively.Medium pacer Devendra Singh pushed North Zone on to the backfoot witha fine spell. He took three wickets and at 12 for five, North Zonewere tottering. Then commenced the fightback. P Dogra (47) and skipperK Rawat (92) added 135 runs for the sixth wicket off 28 overs. Thenafter both batsmen fell in quick succession, wicketkeeper H Khullar(18) and Abhishek Sharma (26 not out) added 35 runs for the eighthwicket off five overs to take North Zone to the doorstep of victorywhich was finally achieved with 2.4 overs to spare.