Deodhar Trophy 2014: Kedar Jadhav’s 90 not good enough for West Zone

It has to be said though that in these days where teams are getting increasingly better in chases on flat tracks, West contrived to lose from a good position – they needed just 75 from 60 balls at one stage after Kedar Jadhav’s 97 had helped them soak up the early damage caused by Dinda’s new-ball spell of 6-0-22-3 but they panicked. Yusuf Pathan was involved in a silly run out, Axar Patel swept straight to square-leg, Shardul Thakur missed a full toss, and Suryakumar Yadav, who for once batted with a lot of composure, fell to his first rash shot as East Zone wrapped up a 23-run victory and their fifth Deodhar Trophy triumph.

Around 8pm on Tuesday, East Zone’s Manoj Tiwary had stopped couple of local journalists leaving the Wankhede stadium to enquire about the dew factor. ‘Will it be there? Is it better to bat first?’ And his team almost made a hash of the decision to bat first before Tiwary revived them with a fine 75 and Biplab Samantray hit a plucky fifty to drag them to a respectable 269.

With the ball skidding off the track under lights, Dinda reduced West to 37 for 3 in 10.3 overs, that included the wicket of Ambati Rayudu. And he returned later to deliver the knock-out blow when he had Suryakumar Yadav slicing straight to cover in 47th over, leaving the tail with too much to do.

Running in with that trademark energy and leap before release, Dinda had the West top-order in trouble. He had already knocked out the openers but it was in the 11th over of the chase when he really opened up the game. Rayudu had hit him for two fours but chased a full ball, curving away, well outside off stump and nicked it behind. West were 37 for 3 at that stage but the confident Kedar Jadhav revived the chase with a responsible hand. He flicked, drove, cut and slashed to take West almost close to win but his dismissal triggered panic.

Jadhav was just three runs from his ton, the chase was under control but the temptation to put away the final ball of the Powerplay, in the 40th over, did him in. He went for a hoick across the line off Samantray but missed it completely. It was the beginning of the end.

There were mini revivals in the remaining overs — when 63 were required form 42 balls, Axar bludgeoned Samantray for 14 runs in what seemed a tide-turning over. But in the final delivery of the next over, he swept Shabaz Nadeem straight to square-leg fielder to create more chaos. The second revival came in the next over when Shardul Thakur whacked Veer Pratap Singh, who had combined well with Dinda with the new ball, for a six over square-leg and a four to the straight boundary.

The equation read 29 from 27 but there was always a twist around the corner. It was a full toss from Singh but Thakur sliced it tamely to point. He protested about it being a no-ball beamer but the ball had dipped under his hip. Dinda, then, came up with the final sucker punch in his first over of his final spell. With 24 required from 17, the usually impetuous Yadav who was restrained yesterday, not hitting a single four in his 55-ball stay, backed away from the stumps to go inside-out over the off-side field for that pressure-relieving four. But he couldn’t clear Sourabh Tiwary at covers and that was that.

Brief scores: East Zone 269 for 8 (V Singh 54, M Tiwary 75, B Samantray 60; D Kulkarni 2 for 35, D Muthuswami 2 for 57) beat West Zone 245 all out in 47.2 overs (K Jadhav 97; A Dinda 4 for 33, S Nadeem 2 for 42).