Uthappa slams century as South comfortably placed at 333 for four

Kolkata, Nov 6 (UNI) Riding on a fine century by Robin Uthappa (141), South Zone reached a commanding 333 for four against Sri Lanka 'A' on the trird day of the Duleep Trophy tie here today.

After conceding a vital 61 run lead to Sri Lanka A, South Zone fought back in style with Uthappa and Dinesh Karthick sharing a 167-run first wicket partnership to demoralise the visitors. Uthappa's 141 came off just 191 balls with 14 boundaries and one six and Karthick made a composed 95 with 11 hits to the fence, making a mockery of the Sri Lankan attack though Akalanka Ganegama looked impressive in short spells.

After Dinesh got out, Uthappa was involved in another fruitful 125-run second wicket partnership with captain VVS Laxman, who scored 45 runs.

Late in the day, Rayadu fell for 17 runs to give Sri Lanka A lucky fourth wicket.

All the wickets were claimed by Akalanka Ganegama, whose spell read 21-2-82-4.

Scorecard : South Zone 2nd innings: D Karthik c Samaraweera b Ganegama 95 R Uthappa c Samaraweera b Ganegama 141 V V S Laxman c Samaraweera b Ganegama 45 Y Venugopal Rao not out 19 A T Rayudu b Ganegama 17 Extras (B 5, Lb 7, W 3, Nb 1) 16 Total (4 wickets; 78 overs) 333 To bat : S Badrinath, A S Yadav, S Sreesanth, V Y Mahesh, Kaushik Reddy, P Ojha.

Fall of wickets : 1-167 (Karthik, 43.6 ov), 2-292 (Uthappa, 69.4 ov), 3-298 (Laxman, 71.2 ov), 4-333 (Rayudu, 77.6 ov) Bowling : W C A Ganegama 21 2 82 4 3.90 (1w) K T G D Prasad 16 0 64 0 4.00 (1w) U D U Chandana 27 1 118 0 4.37 (1nb) A B T Lakshitha 10 0 41 0 4.10 J Mubarak 4 0 16 0 4.00 UNI BA SJC PDS BS1856