South's seamers see off woeful East

Forty-five minutes into the third day, South Zone had completed a crushing innings victory over East Zone. Their innings and 118-run victory followed five consecutive Duleep Trophy losses to East - either outright, or via the first-innings lead. The destroyer-in-chief on the third morning was Karnataka pacer HS Sharath, and it did not help East that they failed to run well and had injuries to contend with - opener Natraj Behera, who was injured in the first innings, dropped down to No. 7 and looked out of sorts, and Wriddhiman Saha was kept out altogether with a thumb injury.

Saha and the India selectors will hope the injury is not serious, with him being part of the national squad for the first three home ODIs against Sri Lanka. It is understood that the selectors are waiting for the physio's report before deciding on whether to name a replacement.

Having started the day four down, East would have been hopeful of dragging things out with part-time medium pacer Manish Pandey opening the bowling and Laxmi Shukla getting a life in his over - he was dropped by Karun Nair in the slips, the ball bursting through his hands after reaching him quickly at head height. Two fours followed in the next two overs, with Stuart Binny and Sharath sending down a short, wide, hit-me delivery apiece. East's fortune was shortlived, though, with Shukla skying a half-tracker from Sharath which didn't really get up - like many deliveries on this pitch - to be caught by B Aparajith who ran across from mid-off.

That's when Behera came in, and he never really got going, mistiming several shots and finding it hard to get off the mark. On zero, he had two vociferous lbw shouts turned down - both times height was the issue - and in his anxiety to get his first run, Saurabh Tiwary was run out; Behera tapped one towards point and took a couple of steps down the track before turning back - by then Tiwary was more than halfway down and Binny collected and fired the throw to Pragyan Ojha who whipped off the bails with Tiwary still a yard out of his ground.

Not long after, Varun Aaron too had to walk back after being found short of his crease at the non-striker's end - he was run out while backing up by the bowler Binny, who got his fingertips on the ball in his followthrough. The end was swift, with Basant Mohanty wafting at one only to be bowled for a two-ball duck, and Dinda brilliantly caught and bowled by Sharath also for zero - Dinda tried to pull, got the edge and the bowler ran towards short cover and dived to claim the catch.

While South Zone were sharp in the field, East Zone's sloppiness on the first morning is what ultimately cost them, captain Manoj Tiwary said after the game: "We didn't set the right tone by dropping catches in the early morning [on day one], mornings are when a lot of wickets fell in this game. That is one of the main reasons we were behind in this game."

Manoj also expressed disappointment that his batsmen failed to display solid techniques. "Disappointed as a captain and as a batsman because we didn't apply ourselves. We played too many balls outside the offstump. We will have a sit down and ask some players to work on their technique."

South's Dinesh Karthik was all praise for Stuart Binny, who claimed a match haul of 7 for 47 with his swinging medium pace. "The wicket was tailor-made for Binny," Karthik said. "He has developed a ball that comes in with his action and he's bowling really well."