HYDERABAD, December 4: East Zone won the battle of nerves against North Zone on the penultimate day of the five-day Duleep Trophy cricket quarter-final match at the Gymkhana here today.

Having taken a narrow lead of 51 runs, East's task was to restrict North in order to set themselves a small target. This, they accomplished quite professionally albeit with some "negative" bowling. The leg-side attack was frustrating to the North batsmen, who looked helpless and managed 279 for eight before declaring 15 minutes from close of play.

East were left with a moderate target of 229 for victory in a minimum of 98 overs. East were 16 for one with opener Subrajit Saikia falling leg before to off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who opened the attack with Robin Singh.

East's gameplan to contain the North batsmen, who might have entertained thoughts of setting up a big score, by directing the attack on the leg-side. This ploy saw the batsmen struggling for runs. Veteran Utpal Chatterjee was clearly the hero. He in his marathon spell of 40 overs captured five wickets.

Such was East's pronounced attack, that strokemakers like Vikram Rathore and Ajay Sharma were forced to watch the ball go by the leg side. Akash Chopra was caught well by Haldipur at square leg. With only 213 runs required on the final day and with nine wickets in hand, East look all set to enter the semi-finals.

SCOREBOARD

North Zone: (1st innings): 295

East Zone (1st innings): 346

North Zone (2ndinnings): J Singh c Karim b Chatterjee 25, V Rathore c Rehman b Chatterjee 48, A Chopra c Haldipur b Rao 69, A Sharma b Chatterjee 13, M Minhas c Morris b Rao 20, P Dharmani c Dutta b Chatterjee 41, N Chopra (not out) 29, R Sanghvi st Karim b Chatterjee 0, R Singh st Karim b Gavaskar 0, H Singh (not out) 5;

Extras (b11, lb13, nb1, w4) 29

Total (for 8 wkt decl in 105 overs) 279

Fall of wickets: 1-70, 2-98, 3-125, 4-154, 5-214, 6-263, 7-270, 8-271.

Bowling: Morris 3-1-13-0, Gautam Dutta 2-0-14-0, Chatterjee 50-12-102-5, Rao 46-6-114-2, Gavaskar 4-1-12-1.

East Zone (2nd innings): S Saikia lbw Harbhajan 5, N Haldipur (batting) 5, R Morris 2

Extras (lb4) 4

Total (for one wkt in 8 overs) 16.

Fall of wicket: 1-9.Bowling: R Singh 3-1-5-0, H Singh 4-2-6-1, N Chopra 1-0-1-0.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.