North Zone beat East by 52 runs, lift Deodhar title

Jaipur, Mar 9 (UNI) North Zone annexed the Deodhar Trophy title after twin tons by skipper Mithun Manhas and Reetinder Singh Sodhi propelled them to a 52-run win against East in their final league assignment here today.

North's triumph was made possible after West Zone, table-topper before today's match, lost their match to South in another tie in Udaipur.

West Zone went into today's match with 12 points while North had nine but after the match, North has 13, thus just about managing to pip West to the title.

Chasing a victory target of 285, East were 146 for six in 30.4 overs when drizzle forced the umpires to halt the play. They did wait for some times to improve the conditions before eventually applying the domestic VJD method and declared North Zone.

The highlight of the East Zone innings was an unbeaten 77 off 95 balls by Abhishek Jhunjhunwala while Jaipur proved to be unlucky for former India skipper Sourav Ganguly who failed with the bat again as he was out for a duck by Joginder Sharma and did not bowl in the match.

Medium pacer VRV Singh, who has been dropped from the Indian team for the ongoing second Test against England, bowled extremely well as he dismissed three East Zone batsmen for only 36. He first bowled opener Subhomoy Das for 17, then got Manoj Tiwari (6) caught behind before removing Rajiv Kumar (1).

While VRV Singh claimed three, Joginder Sharma, R S Sodhi and Amit Mishra claimed one wicket each.

Earlier, centuries by Manhas (105) and Sodhi (108 not out off 109 balls) helped North Zone pile up 284 for three in the reduced 49-overs-a-side match.

Manhas, who had scored a century against South Zone at Udaipur only two days back, displayed brilliant form today also he put on 155 off 179 balls for the third wicket with Sodhi who played almost a run-a-ball knock that included eight fours and three sixes.

The partnership was eventually broken by Ranadeb Bose who bowled Manhas for 105. The batsman faced 128 balls and hit eleven fours during his knock.

Despite losing opener Shikhar Dhawan (5) early, North never looked in trouble as Gautam Gambhir (39 off 29 balls) played a breezy knock that included six fours and a six before being castled by Shiv Shankar Paul.

Pankaj Dharmani (21) remained not out with Sodhi.

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