BENGALURU: After a shabby batting effort, Central Zone came roaring back into the match bowling out East Zone for 122 in their first innings to enjoy a healthy lead of 124 runs in their Duleep Trophy quarter-final on Thursday.
Central closed the day at 64 for no loss in their second innings. They were bundled out for 182 in their first innings on Wednesday after pacer Murasingh bagged five wickets.
Pacer Avesh Khan and left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar shared six wickets equally among them to hasten the fall of East Zone.
They resumed from the overnight 32 for 2 and were in need of a solid partnership to cover the early losses.
Having already lost captain and prolific opener Abhimanyu Easwaran, East's biggest hope of reaching a healthy total was experienced Anustup Majumdar and Riyan Parag.
Majumdar fell cheaply for 4, while Parag showed glimpses of his skills while making a 46-ball 33. Central captain and pacer Shivam Mavi jettisoned Parag, and it signalled the end of the fight for East.
Murasingh played a cameo of 34-ball 30 but that only helped to reduce the lead of Central.
In their second innings, Central gave a much better account of themselves as openers Himanshu Mantri (25) and Vivek Singh (34) stayed till the close on second day to hand their team a definite edge.
