Stuart Binny rips through East Zone; South Zone on top

All-rounder Stuart Binny did the star turn for South Zone as he triggered a spectacular collapse that saw East Zone lose 14 wickets on the second day of the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy.

Starting the day at 236 for nine, South Zone's first innings ended at 264 with last pair of HS Sharath (6 no) and Abhimanyu Mithun (23) batting out the first hour.The South bowlers then came out all guns blazing to skittle East for a paltry 84. Binny was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4/24 from 13 overs.With a huge lead of 180 runs, South captain R Vinay Kumar decided to enforce the follow-on but East didn't fare any better in the their second essay, tottering at 30 for 4 when stumps were drawn. Binny again turned out to be the wrecker-in-chief as his dibbly-dobbly swing bowling got him 3/7 in five overs.The India all-rounder now has match-figures of 7/31 with two days of play still left.Pragyan Ojha, bowling wearing half sleeves with an elbow potective gear, got 3/9 as he polished off the tail.On the first day, Laxmi Ratan Shukla exploited the conditions hitting the right length on a pitch that had a fair amount of green and now it was Binny's turn to stick to the basics, as he bowled in good areas and got the ball to move both ways.The East Zone batsmen failed to show positive intent -- even senior players like Manoj Tiwary (4 and 8) were pushing hard at away-going deliveries, only to be snapped up by the slip fielders. Veteran batsmen Laxmi Ratan Shukla and talented southpaw Sudeep Chatterjee were guilty of not getting to the pitch of the moving deliveries.Binny pitched his deliveries on a drivable length and got it to move as none of the batsmen in the East Zone top-order were ready to cover the swing and ended up giving Manish Pandey, Lokesh Rahul and Karun Nair, some serious slip catching practice.Only Wriddhiman Saha (0) was distinctly unlucky in the first innings as he suffered due to a howler from umpire Paschim Pathak, who had a bad day in office giving two poor decisions. The umpire adjudged Saha caught behind when there was clearly day light between bat and ball.None of the East batsmen crossed 20 and seven of them failed to reach even double digits in the first innings. Rana Dutta (17) was the highest scorer.At the fag end of the day during the second innings, it seemed that the problems were not sorted out as Manoj, Sudeep were dismissed again fishing in the slip cordon. Govind Podder (4) played a Binny delivery thinking that it would come in but it straightened after pitching and knocked the off-stump back. Rana Dutta (0) got a debatable leg-before decision as the ball from Binny looked like clearly missing the leg-stump.

With 150 runs still needed to avoid an innings defeat, the manner in which Manoj Tiwary and company batted doesn't inspire much confidence.