Vaibhav Sooryavanshi underlined his red-ball credentials with a 92 full of fire and brimstone, but East Zone failed to take an innings lead over Central Zone on the second day of the Duleep Trophy semifinal in Bengaluru on Monday.
Left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey (4/66) and pacers Yash Thakur (3/66) and Aryan Pandey (3/43) shared all the wickets to bowl out East for 266, identical to Central's first innings total.
In a match that has now been reduced to a second-innings shootout, Central are placed rather precariously at 45 for three at close. At stumps, Aman Mokhade (23) and Aryan Pandey (4) were batting as pacer Mukesh Kumar dealt a huge blow to Central, dismissing skipper Rajat Patidar in the closing minutes of the day.
Deep Dive
What records did Vaibhav Sooryavanshi break during the Duleep Trophy semifinal?
Why is Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's innings of 92 significant for his career in red-ball cricket?
How did Vaibhav Sooryavanshi manage to score 92 runs in his innings?
But the 15-year-old Sooryavanshi was the star of the day and he became the youngest batter to score a fifty in the Duleep Trophy, surpassing Laxman Singh who achieved the feat as a 16-year-old in 1969. But there was more to the left-hander's batting on the day than that little statistical highlight.
His innings that spanned across 118 minutes and 81 balls was never really a settled-looking one but the Bihar boy showed good temperament. There was a reprieve for him on 40 when Yash Rathod grassed a sitter at backward point off Saransh Jain.
{{/usCountry}}His innings that spanned across 118 minutes and 81 balls was never really a settled-looking one but the Bihar boy showed good temperament. There was a reprieve for him on 40 when Yash Rathod grassed a sitter at backward point off Saransh Jain.
{{/usCountry}}But on either side of that blip, Sooryavanshi played some sensational shots. His onslaught on the day started with a massive six over mid-wicket off pacer Yash Thakur, and apart from that six, Sooryavanshi hammered him for four boundaries in that particular spell.
It forced the Vidarbha pacer to switch to the media box end but the ensuing results were not very encouraging. Once he was done with Thakur, Sooryavanshi trained his eyes on the other bowlers with equal ferocity.
India off-spinner Saransh Jain was clubbed over mid-wicket, and the maximum also took him past the 50-run mark, his second in first-class cricket. There were sixes off Dubey and Aryan Pandey, and another maximum followed by a four took him into the 90s as expectations of Sooryavanshi's maiden first-class match breached the ceiling.
But an ambitious slog-sweep off Dubey ended with Arshad Khan, stationed at deep mid-wicket. Sooryavanshi had to tear himself away from the field, knowing that he missed a golden chance to register a hundred. Along that blistering innings, Sooryavanshi also stitched an opening wicket alliance of 161 with Abhimanyu Easwaran, who made a more compact 69 off 106 balls.
After dismissing Sooryavanshi, Dubey brought in another breakthrough off the very next ball through the wicket of Kumar Kushagra, who edged the spinner to Aman Mokhade at slips.
Easwaran also soon departed, falling leg-before to Pandey, and the pacer inflicted telling blows on East in the 41st over. Pandey ousted Virat Singh and Sudip Kumar Gharami in the space of three balls to leave East tottering at 213 for five. Instead of trying to calmly tread through the rough phase, the East batters tried to hit out of trouble and the approach made Central bowlers' job that much easier.
Even skipper Ishan Kishan, who returned to the field after suffering an injury on Sunday, did not offer any exception. In all, the East lost 10 wickets for 105 runs in a spectacular collapse, and the last five wickets for 53 runs. East Zone were 266 for 9, and a run could have given the all-important innings lead but Thakur castled Mukesh to wrap up the innings.