Chennai, Oct 23: Ishant Jaggi scored an impressive century on a difficult track at the MA Chidamabaram Stadium to lead East Zone to a respectable first innings total of 232 in the final of the Airtel Duleep Trophy. Resuming the third day (after all of the first day and a part of the second day were lost to bad weather) at 64 for 3, Jaggi played a mature knock, never once showed any signs of pressure even as wickets fell at the other end, brought up his sixth century in First-Class cricket and remained unbeaten on 100 when his team had lost all their wickets.

The right-hander from Jharkhand was slow to begin with; surprisingly, he played the passive partner in the stand with the night watchman Iresh Saxena. The pair added 49 runs in 20.3 overs, with Saxena facing the bulk of the deliveries in the partnership. The night watchman, who batted for 82 minutes, was bowled by a beauty from off-spinner Jalaj Saxena; he made 16 from 74 balls. A mini-collapse then followed when Saurabh Tiwary and Biplab Samantray fell within the next four overs.

Jaggi then got together with wicketkeeper Shiv Gautam to put the innings back on track. While he kept his composure and kept picking runs, driving straight down the ground and through the cover region, his partner took the aggressive route to scoring runs. Gautam would charge down the ground, take the aerial route and played horizontal bat shots in his 34 (92 balls, 5 boundaries). The seventh wicket pair would add 57 runs – the highest partnership of the innings.

Gautam would be dismissed when he poked at a Praveen Kumar delivery – bowled with the second new ball – to be caught by Mahesh Rawat behind the stumps. Shortly after, when Ishwar Pandey cleaned up Basant Mohanty and Ashok Dinda in the same over, East Zone were staring at the possibility of getting bowled out for under 200. However, poor fielding from Central Zone – who put down three catches with the last pair at the crease – and some smart batting from Jaggi ensured the team would finish with 232. Last man Alok Mangaraj was put down twice, while Jaggi himself would be put down on 93; the last wicket pair batted for 12.5 overs and added 42 important runs

Jalaj Saxena was the best of the Central Zone bowlers. The Madhya Pradesh lad made good use of the conditions to pick up five wickets – only the second time he has done that in his brief First-Class career. Though Praveen Kumar bowled economically, he had just the one wicket to show for his hard work, while Pandey (2-59) and Bhuvneshar Kumar (1-37) too chipped in with wickets.

Murali Kartik (1-23) was disappointing; the 36-year old, brought on to bowl in the 47th over of the innings, bowled a negative line for most part of the day when he should have taken the lead given his experience and the helpful conditions at the Chepauk.

After East Zone were bowled out, and in the few minutes of play that was possible before bad light forced an early close to the day’s proceedings, the Central Zone opening pair of Tanmay Srivastava and Vineet Saxena had helped their team to 12 in two overs.

Brief Scores:

East Zone 1st Innings: 232 in 101.5 overs (Ishank Jaggi 100*, Shiv Gautam 34, Jalaj Saxena 5-62)

Central Zone 1st Innings: 12-0 in 2.0 overs