East Zone reduced South to 93 for three in the first innings on the second day of the Duleep Trophy league match at Dharamshala on Sunday.
After being restricted to 388, East swung the momentum back in their favour by scalping first Rowland Barrington and Sridharan Sriram and then the prize wicket of South skipper Sadagopan Ramesh.
Y Venugopalarao on 10 and MSK Prasad on two were at the crease at close.
Earlier, resuming at 229 for four, East lost its overnight pair of Shiv Sunder Das and Rajeev Kumar early.
Das fell to N P Singh for 120 while Kumar was out cheaply for 18.
A defiant knock of 84 by Laxmi Ratan Shukla then boosted East to a respectable total.
Utpal Chatterjee (25) and Debashish Mohanty (26) lent valuable support as the tail frustrated South.
The last three wickets fetched 105 runs for East.
Seamer N P Singh took four for 66 while left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi claimed three for 112. R Ramkumar finished with two for 78.
South made a disastrous start when Barrington (15) fell at 52 and Sriram (2) was run out four runs later.
The crucial blow, however, came towards stumps when Test opening batsman Ramesh fell after scoring a stroke-filled 57.
Scoreboard - Day 2
East Zone 1st innings
S S Das c Joshi b N P singh 120
D Dasgupta c Barrington b Ramkumar 10
A Dass LBW b Joshi 55
R Gavaskar c Sharath b Joshi 13
Devang Gandhi c Sub b N P Singh 17
Rajeev Kumar LBW b N P Singh 18
L R Shukla c Shivram b Ramkumar 84
S Lahiri c Ramkumar b Joshi 0
U Chatterjee c Shivram b Venugopalarao 25
D Mohanty c Ramkumar b N P Singh 26
S S Paul not out 0
Extras 20
Total (all out in 144.4 overs) 388
Fall of wickets: 1/37, 2/148, 3/164, 4/188, 5/247, 6/274,
7/283, 8/326, 9/382.
Bowling: N P Singh 25.4-7-66-4, Sunil Joshi 46-13-112-3,
R Ramkumar 34-10-78-2, Y Venugopalarao 9-1-21-1, S Sriram
30-11-95-0.
South Zone 1st innings
R Barrington c R Kumar b Mohanty 15
S Ramesh c Mohanty b Paul 57
S Sriram run out 2
Y Venugopalarao batting 12
M S K Prasad batting 2
Extras 5
Total (for 3 wickets in 35 overs) 93
Fall of wickets: 1/52, 2/56, 3/90.
Bowling: S S Paul 13-4-38-1, Debashish Mohanty 7-2-15-1,
Sourishish Lahiri 1-0-14-0, Utpal Chatterjee 14-2-33-0.
