The Duleep Trophy commenced today with North and South Zones playing each other at the MBBC Stadium in Agartala for a place in the semifinal. North had the better of the day's exchanges as they trudged patiently to a score of 213-4 with the help of a cautious fifty from Pankaj Dharmani and a carefree one from Virender Sehwag.

Fans from the cricketing backwaters of Agartala would have been disappointed to learn yesterday that the top draw for today's game, Mohammed Azharuddin, had withdrawn for undisclosed reasons. This was the last straw for a South Zone side which was already missing eight players away with the national side in Australia and three more who were touring the Caribbean in the India A colours. Indeed Sunil Joshi and Robin Singh are arguably the only two South Zone players in Agartala who would have made a full strength eleven. In contrast, North virtually had all hands on deck except for Harbhajan Singh and Amit Bhandari.

Vikram Rathour bested Robin Singh at the toss and batted. The North batting had a formidable look. South was playing a three man spin attack in Joshi, Raju and Kapoor with Mansur Ali Khan and Mahesh being retained to take the shine off the ball.

The top three in the North batting order, Dani, Rathour and Sodhi, all failed to get going as North found itself at 90-3. It was left to Dharmani to put his stamp on the game with a watchful 59 as he set about rebuilding the innings with the ultra- defensive Rajiv Nayyar. After Dharmani left at 149, Sehwag provided a late flourish with a 66 ball fifty as he scored 54 out of a 64 run unbroken partnership with Nayyar. The latter had crawled to 37 from 172 balls and seemed to be in the mood for a long vigil.

None of South's bowlers were particularly effective with four different bowlers scalping the four wickets to fall. North had taken all of 90 overs for their total but time being of little consequence in these matches, North may be prepared to dawdle all of tomorrow as well.

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