Valsad, Jan 30: East Zone have beaten West Zone to enter the semifinal stage of the 2011-12 Duleep Trophy tournament. Needing 173 to win in the fourth innings, East Zone chased down the target set by their opponents with five wickets to spare.

West Zone resumed the day at 131 for five with Kaustubh Pawar (16*) and Abhishek Nayar (11*) having ended Day 3 with an unbeaten 20-run stand. The two West Zone middle-order batsmen then consolidated their team’s position with Nayar even bringing up a brisk half-century.

However, a devastating spell from East Zone pacer Ashok Dinda brought an unceremonious end to the West Zone innings. Dinda took three of the last five wickets, including those of Pawar (37), Akshay Darekar (1) and Nayar (58), to bowl East Zone out for 201.

Having taken a 29-run lead from West Zone in their first innings, East Zone were left facing a modest fourth-innings target of 173. Although left-arm spinner Darekar took wickets (five for 87) at regular intervals for West Zone, effective contributions from East Zone’s top-order batsmen eventually saw the team home.

East Zone captain Natraj Behera, who struck a century for his team in the first innings, top- scored with an attritional 34 (off 81 deliveries) while an unbeaten 52-run stand between Biplab Samantray (27*) and Anustup Majumdar (26*) took East Zone to the victory mark in 56.3 overs.

The Duleep Trophy semifinals will be played between February 4 and 7. South Zone will clash with Central Zone in the first semifinal in Chennai while North Zone will take on East Zone in the second semifinal at Delhi.

Scorecard