East Zone retain Duleep Trophy

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Sanjay Rajan | TNN

Chennai: Anustup Majumdar turned the contest on its head with his part-time leg-spin to hand holders East Zone a sensational victory on first innings over Central in the rain-hit Duleep Trophy final on Thursday.
Introduced into the attack in the 70th over with Central on 143/4 – needing only 90 runs with six wickets in hand to wrest the crown for the first time in seven seasons – Majumdar returned figures of four for 29 off 7.5 overs to enable East retain the prestigious silverware on the final day.
Central went down in the final for the second straight time to East as they lost their last six wickets for the addition of only 42 runs to be bowled out for 189 after resuming on 74 for two and in pursuit of 233 for first innings honours in the lowscoring contest.
Bengal left-arm spinner Iresh Saxena took three more wickets on the last day to return his third fivewicket haul in first-class cricket in a dramatic final session after play began post noon at the MA Chidambaram Stadium following overnight rains in the southern metropolis.
Opener Tanmay Srivastava hit a gritty 94 but didn’t find sufficient support from his Central teammates on a slow pitch before the left-hander was ninth man out after resuming the day on 46.
Central possibly paid the price for being overly defensive but were still in the match following a fifthwicket stand of 50 in 20.2 overs between Srivastava and Mahesh Rawat.
That was, of course, before East skipper Natraj Behera introduced Majumdar into the attack as the seventh bowler, hoping for a breakthrough and the top-order batsman from Hooghly obliged.
Majumdar had Rawat (24) caught behind with his third delivery and dismissed Bhuvneshwar Kumar legbefore for nought with a googly in his fourth over, after Iresh had sent back Jalaj Saxena (7). All of a sudden East were back in the game at 165/7.
Majumdar struck again almost immediately when he dismissed Praveen Kumar caught in the covers off a leading edge.
Iresh had Srivastava caught at short leg and Majumdar sealed it when he had Murali Kartik caught at long-on, leading to celebrations in the East camp. The players pulled out the stumps in triumph only for the on-field umpires to inform them that play would continue until the mandatory overs. East were 8/0 off five overs when play was called off.