Skipper Subramanium Badrinath notched up a crucial 136 as South Zone took control of the Duleep Trophy final against North Zone, posting 477 in their first innings here on Friday.
Badrinath led from the front, playing the role of a sheet-anchor and starred in a 119-run fourth wicket partnership with B Sumanth (48), to surpass North Zone's first innings total of 337 on the fourth day.
Abhimanyu Mithun (26), Pragyan Ojha (21) and S Aravind (11) chipped in with useful contributions to help South Zone take a healthy 140-run lead.
In their second innings, North Zone were 50 for one with Ojha removing opener Shikhar Dhawan (19). N Saini (21) and Mandeep Singh (9) were at the crease when stumps were drawn at the Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium here.
Earlier, resuming their first innings at 298 for three, overnight batsman Badrinath added another 39 runs to his score of 97. He hit 12 fours and a couple of sixes in his 208-ball innings.
Sumanth gave the skipper good support at the other end and cracked seven boundaries before his innings was cut short by Narwal, whose low-bounce ball rattled the timber.
{{/usCountry}}Sumanth gave the skipper good support at the other end and cracked seven boundaries before his innings was cut short by Narwal, whose low-bounce ball rattled the timber.
{{/usCountry}}A few overs later, Badrinath was run out by Ishant Sharma after Amit Verma fielded the ball and sent it straight to bowler who made no mistakes.
Ishant struck again, dismissing C Gautam (9) and R Vinay Kumar (0) in consecutive overs at the same score of 386. Joginder Sharma then got rid off Mithun, while Yashpal Singh had Ojha stumped by Uday Kaul.