Bengaluru, July 13 (FN Agency) Vidwath Kaverappa and Vijaykumar Vyshak turned the tables in South Zone’s favour by reducing West Zone to 129/7 on Day 2 of the Duleep Trophy final at Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Thursday. The West are trailing South by 84 runs with Atit Sheth and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja batting on 5 and 4, respectively. In the first innings, South were skittled out for 213 runs.Kaverappa was the pick of the bowler who claimed four wickets, and Vyshak two, besides a wicket by Vasuki Koushik. Opener Prithvi Shaw and Harvik Desai put on 97 runs on board after Captain Priyank Panchal was caught by Mayank Agarwal off Koushik. Desai flashed hard at Kaverappa only to watch sail into the hands of wicketkeeper Ricky Bhui who made a useful 21 off 61 balls with three boundaries.Shaw did not stay long as well; he was set up with short-pitched stuff by Vyshak. After negotiating the climbing deliveries, the opener could not avoid an upper-cut which landed into Kaverappa’s hands.Shaw was a delight to watch when his partnership was building up with Desai.
His trademark cover drives, a straight drive and delectable flick, showcased his batsmanship as he belted a 101 balls 65 runs knock, which was studded with 9 splendid boundaries.Perhaps the 65-minute delay due to rain in the second session enabled the team think-tank to sit across the table to execute the wicket-taking strategy when Shaw and Desai looked poised for posting a big total for the West. Vyshak adopted different tactics, came around the wicket and sprayed Shaw and Desai with short-pitched stuffballs. The duo were confused whether to go for the aerial shots or duck underneath. In contrast, Kaverappa resorted to fuller-length tactics. Suryakumar Yadav almost was caught by Sai Kishore at deep midwicket off Vyshak as he uppishly pulled, but the ball bumped over for six.However, Suryakumar was snapped up by Hanuma Vihari off Kaverappa’s climbing ball, and Sarfaraz Khan was trapped immediately thereafter for a duck by Kaverappa.Chetsehwar Pujara, who is known as the crisis man, disappointed his teammates. He flicked Kaverappa straight into the hands of Ravikumar Samarth after making 9 off 38 balls with a boundary against his name.