At the end of another eventful day, East Zone were scenting victory in their Duleep Trophy match against South Zone at the Maharaja Bir Bikram College Stadium in Agartala on Friday. Eleven runs behind on the first innings, South Zone were all out for 177 in their second knock. Requiring 167 runs for victory, East Zone were 71 for two at stumps. With only 96 runs more required and eight wickets in hand, they must start the third day as favourites.

Resuming at three for no loss, South Zone were again rocked by Debasish Mohanty who dismissed both openers Sridharan Sriram (14) and A Nandakishore (18) with only 42 runs on the board. However, South Zone's fortunes were, for a short while, in the safe hands of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. The two India stars added 67 runs for the third wicket off 18 overs and at 109 for two, South Zone seemed poised for a challenging total. However Assam left arm spinner Sukhbinder Singh had Laxman caught and bowled for 40 and there was precious little substance in the South Zone batting thereafter. Laxman faced 66 balls and hit seven fours.

Mohanty came back to dismiss Vijay Bhardwaj (1) for his 13th wicket of the match. Sukhbinder then had VST Naidu leg before for eight. Sunil Joshi became the third successive lbw victim when he was dismissed by Mohanty. Aashish Kapoor and Javagal Srinath were dismissed off successive deliveries from Sukhbinder and South Zone had slumped to 138 for eight.

Dravid was holding one end up and he now found an able partner in WD Balaji Rao with whom he added 35 runs for the ninth wicket off eight overs. However Sukhbinder brought the innings to a swift end when in one over he had the wickets of Dravid and Venkatesh Prasad. Dravid, who batted a shade over three hours for 66, faced 143 balls and hit eight of them to the ropes. But the chief honours were claimed by Sukhbinder who finished with six for 57. Mohanty's bag of four for 45 gave him a match haul of 14 for 91.

East Zone required only a modest target but were rocked by Indian pacemen Srinath and Prasad. While P Jai Chandra was bowled by Prasad for three, RR Parida was bowled by Srinath for a duck. East Zone were in trouble at eight for two. But Indian opener Shiv Sundar Das and Sanjay Raul weathered the storm with an unbroken third wicket partnership of 63 runs off 29.3 overs. By close, Das was batting on 49 compiled off 108 balls with seven fours. Raul was on 15.

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