Irfan Pathan carved up the North Zone top order © AFP
Irfan Pathan‘s three-wicket burst set up West Zone‘s eight-wicket win over North Zone with 7.2 overs to spare.
Needing only 108 for a win, captain Parthiv Patel, who scored a 35-ball 56, and Shreyas Iyer (30) blasted away with an eye on their net run-rate, which is no longer in the red. They added 80 for the first wicket in nine overs before Iyer charged out of the crease to offspinner Parvez Rasool and missed the ball to be trapped lbw. In the 12th over, Parthiv, attempting to back away and slog, was bowled by Mohit Sharma, but Aditya Tare sewed up the game in the next over with a flurry of boundaries.
North Zone, in contrast, limped to 31 for 4 in the Powerplay after they were inserted in the morning. Irfan first dismissed Shikhar Dhawan, who had made a half-century on Sunday, in the third over. In his next over, he accounted for Rishabh Pant and Yuvraj Singh, who was out for a first-ball duck, off successive deliveries, with Deepak Hooda taking both the catches. He gave away only 10 runs in his four-over spell.
That North Zone managed a three-digit total was entirely due to Gautam Gambhir (60 off 58 balls), who scored his second fifty in as many matches. With only two other batsmen scoring 10 or above, Gambhir waged a lone battle till the final over. His pull shot against Shardul Thakur off the penultimate delivery didn’t clear Pravin Tambe at square leg. Seamers Thakur (1 for 29) and Ishwar Chaudhary (1 for 23) complemented Irfan with tidy spells.
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo