Jan. 26: It turned out to be a happy and cheerful Republic Day for South Zone as Manish Pandey hammered an unbeaten double-hundred (203) to help them pile a formidable 416 for 8 on Day One of their Duleep Trophy semifinal against Central Zone at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
Manish’s 191-ball essay was the highlight of the day as he paraded the Central Zone bowlers one after another in an innings that left the opponents battered and bruised. The pint-sized Manish never for once took his foot away from the accelerator as South maintained a stupendous run-rate of close to five-runs-an over right through the day.
The 21-year-old would have made a certain Virender Sehwag proud when he took the aerial route to get to his seventh first-class century. If Manish was audacious in his approach, his partner in the run-fest —Abhinav Mukund — was more orthodox.
Manish and Abhinav added 174 runs for the third wicket off just 175 deliveries. With the wicket playing true, batting became a delight. The duo started on a sedate note but soon flexed their muscles, throwing caution to the wind as their team literally ran away with the match.
Abhinav was the first to bring up his 100, off 136 balls that had 20 sweetly-timed hits to the fence. Manish soon followed suit, notching up his seventh first-class century that was studded with 10 fours and five sixes. The Central Zone side was guilty of some ordinary bowling and an equally shoddy effort on the field.
After the departure of Abhinav for 105, one would have expected Manish to drop anchor and consolidate. But, that was not to be as the Bengaluru boy continued to make merry against a listless bowling. The only blemish in Manish’s innings came when he was dropped at 127 by Pankaj Singh at mid-off. While Central did hit back, scalping eight wickets during the day’s play, they would know that Manish is still at the crease.
Earlier in the day, South Zone won the toss and chose to take strike on what appeared to be a good batting wicket. The South Zone batters attacked from the word go, despite losing Robin Uthappa and captain S. Badrinath early in the innings. Uthappa (1) was given out caught behind while skipper Badrinath (13) was unfortunately run-out to leave South Zone at 56 for 2.
While most teams would have gone for a safer approach, Manish and Abhinav seemed to have taken a leaf out of the adage — attack is the best form of defence, and it paid them rich dividends.
SCOREBOARD
South Zone 1st innings
A. Mukund c Kanitkar b RP Singh 105 (146b, 21x4), R. Uthappa c Ojha b RP Singh 1 (4b), S. Badrinath (run out) 13 (19b, 2x4), M. Pandey (batting) 203 (191b, 19x4, 7x6), D. Karthik c Ojha b Yadav 37 (47b, 6x4), Amit Verma c Ojha b Wakhare 19 (60b, 2x4), CM Gautam c RP Singh b Pankaj 0 (5b), Vinay Kumar b Pankaj 5 (23b, 1x4), Mithun c Ojha b Yadav 28 (41b, 6x4), Extras (b-2, lb-2, w-1) 5.
Total (8 wkts; 89.2 overs) 416
FoW: 1-15, 2-56, 3-230, 4-294, 5-347, 6-350, 7-372, 8-416.
Bowling: RP Singh 23-3-98-2, Pankaj Singh 22-2-85-2, Umesh Yadav 20.2-3-85-2, Wakhare 21-2-114-1, Bundela 3-0-30-0.