North Zone medium pacers made most of the grassy wicket at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday, bundling out South Zone for a paltry 157 in the first innings of the Duleep Trophy match.
Electing to field, North Zone bowlers got assistance from green grass and the Kokubura red ball to restrict South Zone to just 157 all out in 55.5 overs.
VS Mallik and R Bhatia caused the maximum damage claiming 5/44 and 4/13 respectively.
The North Zone medium pacers began to swing the ball after six overs, creating lot of problems for the South Zone batsmen.
The first South Zone wicket fell after eight overs when the score was 37. Thereafter, the wickets fell in heap.
At one point, South Zone's score read eight for 82.
Opener Ravi Teja and medium pacer Vinay Kumar were the top scorers with an identical score of 41. Kumar remained not out at 41. S Badrinath, South Zone captain, was out for a duck.
The North Zone began on a confident note with its openers involved in a decent partnership of 58 runs for the first wicket.
Akash Chopra made 37 and S Dhawan contributed 23. However, once the first wicket fell at the score of 58, the South Zone medium pacers rattled the North Zone claiming four more quick wickets.
At the draw of stumps North Zone were 104 for five in 31 overs.
For South Zone medium pacers Vinay Kumar claimed 2/45 and NSC Aiyappa took 2/22.
North Zone captain M Manhas could not do much with the bat and was out after scoring just three runs.
