HYDERABAD, Dec 2: The Resolute third wicket pair of Nikhil Haldipur (73 batting, 308m, 191b, 10x4, 1x6) and Rohan Gavaskar (55; 127b, 5x4, 2x6) kept the North Zone bowlers at bay for 148 minutes before the latter fell 15 minutes before close of play. Thanks to this left handed combination East Zone ended the second day of the five-day Duleep Trophy match at 186 for 3 in 74 overs at the Gymkhana here today. This was in reply to North's first innings score of 295 in 106 overs.

In the morning, East bowlers took 45 minutes to polish off the North tail. Resuming at the overnight score of 264 for seven, North added another 31 runs. Harvinder Singh struck the day's second and fourth ball for sixes off left arm spinner Utpal Chatterjee. Then, in trying to repeat the act he holed out to Rohan Gavaskar at mid-wicket. Off-spinner Sanjay Raul grabbed the last two wickets to terminate North's innings.

East batsmen complemented the wonderful job of their bowlers. The start was excellent, left-handed openers Subrajit Saikia (32) and Haldipur putting on 49 runs. Both the batsmen played the medium pace attack of Harvinder Singh and Robin Singh confidently.

However, on the first ball after lunch, young off-spinner Harbhajan Singh struck by forcing Saikia to give a simple catch to mid-off. The offie was easily the North's best bowler on view. After some impressive performances in the Ranji league, Harbhajan justified his selection ahead of Aashish Kapoor to the North side. Never afraid to toss the ball, he got the ball to turn and troubled all the batsmen.

With only 109 runs behind for the first innings lead, East have so far done a decent job and it appear heading for a sizeable lead.Scoreboard

North Zone (1st innings; overnight 264-7): Jitender Singh c Karim b Morris 23, Vikram Rathore c Karim b Chatterjee 94, Aakash Chopra c Rehman b Rao 63, Ajay Sharma c Halidpur b Rao 13, Mithun Minhas lbw Morris 0, Pankaj Dharmani run out 26, Nikhil Chopra c Karim b Chatterjee 2, Rahul Sanghvi not out 19, Harvinder Singh c Gavaskar b Chatterjee 31, Robin Singh Jr c Gavaskar b Raul 10, Harbhajan Singh c Chatterjee b Raul 0; Extras: (lb4, b3, nb5, w2) 14, Total (all out in 106 overs) 295

Fall of wickets: 1-51, 2-149, 3-171, 4-181, 5-223, 6-234, 7-234, 8-276, 9-293

Bowling: Morris 21-2-77-2, Dutta 10-4-27-0, Chatterjee 37-13-93-3, KVP Rao 20-9-48-2, Gavaskar 3-1-5-0, Raul 13-0-37-2, Gandhi 2-1-1-0.

East Zone (1st innings): S Saikia c R Singh b Harbhajan Singh 32, Nikhil Haldipur batting 73, Devang Gandhi c J Singh b Harbhajan Singh 20, R Gavaskar c&b Sanghvi 55, Saba Karim batting 1; Total: (for 3 wkts in 74 overs) 186

Fall of wickets: 1-49, 2-74, 3-184.

Bowling: Harvinder Singh 16-2-55-0, R Singh 10-5-21-0, Chopra 17-4-41-0, Harbhajan Singh 21-8-28-2, Sanghvi 7-2-23-1, Sharma 3-0-16-0.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.