Duleep Trophy- Final- Day 1 - North Zone v South Zone

Isn’t it somehow the easiest thing in the world to do- to back the underdog. What matters is actually backing them when they begin their struggle. On a benign pitch, North Zone somehow contrived to find themselves in a fix at 30/3 and later at lunch on 57/4

Like the cliché` goes, Dogra stood tall amongst the ruins. It isn’t easy to play the kind of innings that he played today. There were two or rather three turning points in the game connected to Dogra today. One was him surviving the probing spells from the Karnataka pacers before lunch. He seemed all at sea against Vinay Kumar and Aravind, unable to decipher the movement and found a few outside edges eluding the fielders

Second was the way he treated the part time bowlers of South Zone. At one stage, both he and Yashpal Singh were on 19 but at the sight of the part time bowlers, Dogra motored away. So much so that when Yashpal got out for 32, Dogra was on 72

Third was the way he dominated Ojha and never allowed him to settle into a rhythm once he came back into the attack. South Zone would be pretty happy with the way things have turned out and would have taken North Zone being 266/7 at the end of the day’s play but considering that they had North on their knees at 57/4, they would be an unsatisified lot

Part of the blame lies with Ojha, who showed no cricketing sense whatsoever in stopping a full blooded drive with his foot and injuring himself in the process. Some of the blame should also point to the captain Badrinath as he did not attack the batsmen post lunch and also for his defensive field settings

With the ball being fairly new, South Zone, would still harbour hopes of restricting North Zone to a total below 350 if not 300. From then on, they would depend on the batsmen to grab the initiative

Dogra, if he stays at the wicket till lunch tomorrow can take North Zone to a winning first innings score. All depends on who grabs the initiative early on the second day

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