North Zone have virtually made sure of regaining the Duleep Trophy. When play was called off a few minutes before the scheduled close on the fourth day of the final against West Zone at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta on Monday, North Zone had taken a stranglehold on the match. They had taken the all important first innings lead of 101 runs by dismissing West Zone for 367. They then consolidated their position by scoring 99 for two at stumps. With an overall lead of 200 runs, eight wickets in hand and only one day left, North Zone hold all the aces.

When play commenced in the morning, the match looked to be evenly balanced. For West Zone had seven wickets in hand and needed another 232 runs to go ahead of the North Zone first innings total of 468. But medium pacer Robin Singh struck early blows and West Zone could never really recover adequately. Wasim Jaffer kept going and with tailenders IR Siddiqui and Nilesh Kulkarni made a valiant effort to push the score along but it was a hopeless cause and West Zone finished way behind the North Zone total.

Their troubles started early. Vinod Kambli, on whom West Zone had pinned a lot of hope, was caught by Sehwag off Robin Singh for 14. He was the fourth batsman out at 245. Five runs later, PH Patel was out to the same Dahiya-Robin Singh combination for a duck. In his following over, Robin Singh had Mhambrey leg before and West Zone, at 254 for six, were reeling.

Jaffer soldiered on in a losing cause and found some support with Siddiqui (20) helping him to put on 36 runs for the seventh wicket. Dahiya then latched on to his fourth catch of the innings when he snaffled Siddiqui off Amit Bhandari for 20. A little later, Khan was held by Rathour off Navdeep Singh and the West Zone innings, at 295 for eight was cut asunder.

Kulkarni however played aggressively and he and Jaffer put up a semblance of a fight by adding 53 runs for the ninth wicket from 14.4 overs. Robin Singh then returned to have Kulkarni caught by Dahiya for 24. Kulkarni had faced 48 balls and hit three fours and a six. Last man Bhavin Mehta (5) stayed for an hour but only 19 runs were added for the tenth wicket as Jaffer became a bit bogged down. At the end of the innings he was unbeaten with 173 after having batted 613 minutes. He faced 431 balls and hit 23 fours. He became the second batsman after Surender Bhave to carry his bat in the tournament. But he had to share the individual honours with Robin Singh who with his incisive and accurate bowling finished with the excellent figures of 33-12-62-6. On the fourth day, he had figures of 13-5-27-4.

When North Zone batted again, West Zone had the encouragement of an early wicket when Ashu Dani was adjudged leg before to Mhambrey for 4. But Rathour and RS Sodhi squashed any hopes that West Zone might have had of coming back into the match by adding 60 runs for the second wicket off 16 overs. Rathour then gave a return catch to Kulkarni and departed for a well made 41 compiled off 57 balls with the help of six fours. The in form Pankaj Dharmani and Sodhi then played out the remaining overs. Sodhi, getting increasingly aggressive, took three fours off the last over of the day bowled by Kambli.

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