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West gain huge lead, enter Duleep final

West Zone assured themselves of a berth in the Duleep Trophy cricket final when they a took 345-run first innings lead over East, bowling them out for 255 runs about an hour after lunch on the penultimate day of their semi-final tie at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta.

In the final, which will begin at Eden Gardens on December 17, West Zone will take on the winners of the other semi-final between North and Central Zone being played at Guwahati.

In spite of having a huge first-innings lead, which is more than is required to enforce a follow-on, West skipper Amol Muzumdar preferred to bat again, perhaps to get some more practice before the title clash.

Coming in to bat for the second time, West made 174 for 1 with opener Wasim Jaffer and Abhijit Kaley remaining at the crease with 75 and 55, respectively.

Earlier, East Zone, who resumed their first innings with an overnight score of 208 for 5, could hardly put up any further resistance and the rest of their batsmen added only 47 more runs. None of the East batsmen today, except Sukhbinder Singh, put up a fight against not-so-hostile bowling by the West.

Wicket-keeper Syed Saba Karim, who remained not out scoring 60 yesterday, was the first to go without adding to his total. He was caught by Amol Muzumdar off mediumpacer Zaheer Khan.

Only Sukhbinder Singh tried to put up a fight. Playing judiciously, he remained not out with 51.

Of the West bowlers, Zaheer Khan and Iqbal Siddiqui proved more successful bagging a couple of wickets each for 66 and 39 runs, respectively. Three other West bowlers -- Paras Mhambrey, Nilesh Kulkarni and Bhavin Mehta -- also collected a scalp each.

UNI

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