Contrary to the manner in which their senior team caved in against East Zone in the just concluded Duleep Trophy match at Agartala, the South Zone Under-19 side had a comfortable opening day against Central Zone in the three day CK Nayudu Trophy final at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on Sunday. At stumps, South Zone were a healthy 303 for 6 with the Andhra middle order batsman ASK Varma (72) and Karnataka all rounder Deepak Chougule (61) leading the way.

Opting to bat, South openers TS Suman (59) and stumper Tahir Hussain (34) put on 56 runs off 13.3 overs. Tahir was the first to be dismissed when he was caught behind by Amit Deshpande off Chandrashekar Atram. This brought Chougule to the crease and he and Suman took the score to 103. Suman was the next to return to the confines of the pavilion, trapped leg before by S Upadhyaya. During his 114-minute stay at the crease, Suman faced 68 balls and hit seven fours.

The fall of Suman ushered in the South Zone skipper, Arjun Yadav (26) to the middle. Chougule and Yadav added 54 runs for the third wicket before the captain was caught by the substitute fielder Jitender Singh off N Choudhury. With the scoreboard reading 193, Chougule himself perished to a catch by A Kapoor off Atram. During a 148-minute stay at the crease, Chougule faced 120 balls and hit eight fours and one six.

ASK Varma then forged a 63-run fifth wicket stand with Stuart Binny (24). Binny was the next batsman to be dismissed, caught by Jitender Singh off Upadhyaya. Varma. who had by then crossed his half century, was motoring along smoothly. But in the 75th over of the day, he was sent back to the pavilion, caught behind by Deshpande off Upadhyaya. Vijay Sai Suri (12) and Mohd Faiq (5) took the team to stumps with no further casualities. S Upadhyaya was the most successful bowler with figures of 3 for 59.

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