Cheteshwar Pujara ton floors Central Zone as West take control

Cheteshwar Pujara and second-inning dominance has never been more pronounced than it has been in the last few years. Even though his form has considerably dipped in recent years, he's shown his might in the second innings with an average close to 50. It was well on display in Alur on Friday as Pujara went on to slam his 60th first-class ton to go level with Vijay Hazare. 

Pujara’s innings could be divided into three parts. Resuming his innings unbeaten on fifty, Pujara was watchful in the first hour of the play. So much so that, after a single against Saurabh Kumar in the first over of the day, he didn’t even try to run for a single until Avesh Khan provided him the width to drive the ball. Two consecutive boundaries opened him up, but with Het Patel playing some majestic strokes all around, Pujara went back to his normal duty of grinding.

Patel was terrific to watch. He played all but two shots in front of the square, but his assured stroke-making put West Zone at ease. When Pujara reached the 90s, he let go of the inhibition to hit a couple of boundaries to get to his ton - one that was received with loud cheers from the dressing room and the few spectators, who rode the wall of the Alur Ground to enjoy the legendary Indian batter go about his business in typical fashion.

While Saurabh Kumar was at his usual best, he found able support from Madhya Pradesh spinner Saransh Jain who scalped three wickets of his own. But the lack of help from the pacers put Central on the backfoot as West raced to a lead of 384 runs when Pujara found himself at the receiving end of a run out thanks to a direct throw from Jain. 

But Central didn’t even have the time to celebrate wildly, with rain arriving in full flow. It stopped after a while, but the damage was done to the outfield, particularly to the section near one of the bowling ends. All efforts were made to dry that patch, but at 4:03 PM, umpires decided to call the day off.

North-South game poised for an interesting finish

A half-century from Prabhsimran Singh and a 38-run cameo from Harshit Rana ensured that North Zone scored above 200 runs in the second innings of the second semi-final match against South Zone at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. 

While it was Vidwath Kaverappa in the first innings, in the second it was Vyshak Vijay Kumar who scalped a fifer to put South Zone in the driver’s seat, with the Mayank Agarwal-led side needing 215 runs to win.

Rain caused a considerable amount of concern in Chinnaswamy, and when it was eventually called off, South were on 21/0, still needing 194 runs to win the encounter.