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Nikhil Chopra holds centrestage

A chanceless unbeaten century by Nikhil Chopra and a first ball wicket by Robin Singh put North Zone in a commanding position in their Duleep Trophy semi-final against Central Zone at the Maligaon Railway stadium today.

North ended their first innings with a mammoth total of 543, while in reply Central were 24 for one at close of the second day's play, losing Sanjay Bangar off the very first ball of the innings.

The match was stopped 15 minutes ahead of schedule because of poor light.

The day's honours went to Nikhil Chopra, who walked to the crease in the second over of the day and carried his bat right till the end. He tore apart the weak Central bowling, which became toothless after the first hour, to score 132, which contained 12 fours and five sixes.

Chopra and Punjab all rounder Shakti Singh added 145 for the ninth wicket to put their side in an invincible position. In the process, they also erased an 11-year-old ninth wicket record in the Duleep Trophy. The earlier record was by Bharat Arun and V Raman of South Zone. They put on 127 against North at Kanpur in 1987-88.

Nikhil added 50 runs with overnight not out batsman Dinesh Mongia, after Pritam Gandhe bowled the other overnight not out batsman Rajib Nayyar for 13.

Scoreboard

North Zone (1st innings)
A Dani c Mudgal b Bangar 53
V Rathour c Jyoti P Yadav b Hirwani 70
R S Sodhi c Mudgal b Hirwani 88
P Dharmani c Gandhe b Hirwani 52
R Nayyar b Gandhe 13
V Shewag b Gandhe 10
D Mongia lbw Bangar 22
N Chopra not out 132
Navdeep Singh lbw b Zaidi 11
Shakti Singh c Saif b Zaidi 50
R Singh b Zaidi 1
Extras (lb 7, nb 34) 41
Total: (all out, 161.5 overs) 543
Fall of wickets: 1-98, 2-171, 3-260, 4-282, 5-298, 6-305, 7-356, 8-372, 9-517, 10-543.
Bowling: Zaidi 30.5-6-100-3 (1nb), Bangar 36- 5- 141- 2-(4nb), Gandhe 28- 3- 105- 2, Hirwani 44- 4- 129- 3 (29nb), Pandey 17-4-33-0, Abbas Ali 3-0-16-0, Saif 3-0-12-0

Central Zone (1st innings)
S Bangar b Singh 0
Jyoti P Yadav not out 8
Abbas Ali not out 15
Extras (lb 1) 1
Total: (1 wicket, 9.2 overs) 24
Fall of wicket: 1-0
Bowling:
Singh 5- 0- 8- 1, Shakti Singh 4- 1- 15- 0, Chopra 0.2- 0- 0- 0.

UNI