Duleep Trophy final, Day 1: Kishan takes East to 385-4 vs South

Skipper Ishan Kishan struck a flowing unbeaten 111 leading East Zone to a commanding 385 for four against a sloppy South Zone on the opening day of the Duleep Trophy final here on Sunday Kishan 14x4 1x6 and Kumar Kushagra 63 were batting at stumps and the fifth wicket pair has so far added 144 runs in just 264 overs The other contributors were teen phenom Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 44 37b Abhimanyu Easwaran 72 and Shikhar Mohan 85Kishan who completed 4000 firstclass runs merged aggression and composure to a nicety in his 135ball knock and raised 94 runs for the fourth wicket with Mohan It came at an important juncture too when East were in trouble the only time in the first innings so far at 147 for threeSouth could have had their rivals in a far deeper predicament but Kishan and Mohan averted the disaster on a pitch that remained true the whole day Kishans was a complete innings sending the ball to all parts of the field through powerful pulls and imperious drives through the coversThe lefthander reached his fifty in 71 balls and then the next 50 came off 51 balls completing his 10th firstclass hundred Kishan reached the landmark with a driven four off Shreyas Gopal who was playing in his 100th firstclass match At the other end Mohan has a solid presence showing a lot more maturity than his tender 21 yearsThe feature of his innings was the judgment he showed to leave the ball outside offstump There was not even one single play and miss in his innings But his fifty was not all about defence as Mohan carted offspinner Tripurana Vijay for a six and two fours in one over to showcase his range Just as he was nearing a welldeserved hundred Mohan chopped leftarm pacer CV Milind who replaced an injured Vidwath Kaverappa on to his stumpsIn fact it was the Easts first innings story in a nutshell batters getting dismissed before the innings reached the full bloom Easwaran who is often dubbed as an obdurate batter looked in complete control and at times even outpaced SooryavanshiThey milked 100 runs for the opening wicket in just 14overs and East seldom let that momentum slip Vaibhav Sooryavanshi would curse himself for playing a rather reckless pull off Milind for substitute Tanay Thayagarajan to offer a simple catch in the deep It perhaps was the first time South bowlers tested the young lefthander with a shortpitched ball and it yielded instant resultsThe whole sequence will teach the Bihar youngster to show more patience in the middle particularly when nearly 10000 spectators thronged the MA Chidambaram Stadium to watch the latest wonder kid in cricket Kushagra too played with determination as South withered under a barrage of runs Nothing more revealed the plight of South than the sight of lead pacer Mohammad Siraj going through three colourless spellsThe India quicks outing on the day read 50410 51240 and 40310 for an overall reading of 141960 Siraj was clobbered around by Sooryavanshi 6 4 4 Easwaran 4 4 Kushagra 6 4 as the Hyderabad man struggled to make an impactHe can partly blame a flat pitch for his ineffectiveness but there was no real attempt from his side to alter the course of the happenings Unless South find a way to pluck Easts remaining six wickets on Monday quickly they will be further buried under an avalanche of runs and will find it tough to come out of itThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever