da heads bet： South Zone made batting look easy against West Zone in the Duleep trophyclash at the Lalabhai Contractor stadium in Surat as they piled up 595 forthe loss of six wickets before declaring on Saturday
Staff Reporter20-Jan-2001
RahulDravid
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South Zone made batting look easy against West Zone in the Duleep trophyclash at the Lalabhai Contractor stadium in Surat as they piled up 595 forthe loss of six wickets before declaring on Saturday. The highlight of theday was a 409 run third wicket stand between VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid, arecord for any wicket in the competition. Having conceded a first inningslead of 219, West progressed to 64/1 at stumps in their second innings onthe third day.The prolific Hyderabadi VVS Laxman continued his good form with the bat,making a sparkling 217 off 282 balls. His mammoth knock had 25 boundariesand two sixes. Laxman, who began the day unbeaten on 80, notched up histenth century in as many matches of domestic first-class cricket. SkipperRahul Dravid missed out on his double ton when he was castled on 188 byKanitkar. His 292 ball innings had 22 boundaries and a solitary six.Resuming on the overnight score of 296 for two, the South batsmen tookoptimum advantage of the perfect batting track as they punished the bowlersall through the day’s proceedings. S Ramesh was unlucky to have missed outon his century earlier but both the overnight batsmen Rahul Dravid and VVSLaxman went on to register their respective centuries in the day.By the lunch interval, both were still at the crease having overlapped theWest total and taken a lead by 55 runs. Dravid was batting on 130 andLaxman was on 138. Dravid reached the three figure knock off 170 balls andLaxman blazed 149 balls for his century. South went to lunch at 431 for twooff 102 overs.Dravid was the first to go with the score on 564. Four runs later, Laxmanfollowed suit as he edged medium pacer Lalit Patel to Nayan Mongia behindthe stumps. Having gone into tea at 587 for four, South declared shortlyafterwards with southpaws Hemang Badani and Sunil Joshi at the crease.In their reply, West openers Connor Williams and Nayan Mongia added 64 forthe first wicket before the former fell to Aashish Kapoor for 43 in the21st over. Stumps were called immediately afterwards with Mongia on 21.