RAJKOT, Dec 13: The sun set on the East Zone as a marathon effort of 13 hours and 170 runs of a 21-year-old came to an end 47 runs too short and West rode into the Duleep Trophy finals on virtue of their first innings lead as the curtains fell on the semi-finals at the Rajkot Municipal Corporation ground here on Sunday.Nikhil Haldipur who opened the innings for the East Zone, chasing West's 473 for a berth in the finals, was the last man to depart nearly 13 hours later with East's total reading 426. Samant hit five more boundaries after reaching the landmark before he was lapped up at silly point by Wasim Jaffar off the bowling of Nilesh Kulkarni on 84.
West Zone (first Innings): 473.
East Zone (first Innings): SS Das lbw Tushar Arothe 45, Nikhil Haldipur b Sairaj Bahutule 170, Rajiv Kumar Raja run out 18, Tariq Ul Rehman c Jatin Paranjpe b Paras Mhambray 49, Sanjay Raul lbw P Mhambray 2, Iqbal Khan b T Arothe 0, Robin Morris lbw Nilesh Kulkarni 13, Utpal Chatterjee lbw Iqbal Siddiqui 5, Vinayak Samant c Wasim Jaffar b N Kulkarni 84, Laxmi Ratan Shukla c Sitanshu Kotak b S Bahutule 10, Wrichik Mazumdar not out 9. Extras: 21 (b 14, lb 3, w 2, nb 2). Total: 426Fall of wickets: 1-64, 2-100, 3-211, 4-222, 5-223, 6-242, 7-257, 8-380, 9-411.
Bowling: Paras Mhambray 30-9-69-2, Iqbal Siddiqui 28-5-96-1, Nilesh Kulkarni 53-20-83-2, Tushar Arothe 31-11-47-2, Sairaj Bahutule 40.2-6-96-2, Sitanshu Kotak 6-2-18-0.
West Zone (2nd Innings): Sameer Dighe lbw Robin Morris 9, Wasim Jaffar not out 26, Jatin Paranjpe 0, Abhijit Kale not out 24; Extras: 13 (b 4, lb 1, nb 5, w 3).Total: (for 2 wkts): 72Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-24.
Bowling: Robin Morris 6-1-18-1, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 10-2-25-0, Wrichik Mazumdar 10-4-24-0, Tariq Ul Rehman 5-5-0-0, Rajiv Kumar Raja 2-2-0-0, SS Das 1-1-0-0.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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