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| Ashok Dinda |
Visakhapatnam: His wicket-taking ability has never been questioned, but still he has never had a guaranteed place in the Indian team. However, Ashok Dinda is not one to get bogged down by disappointments.
On Wednesday, the speedster from Bengal once again reminded the selectors that he means business when his hostile spell of fast bowling helped defending champions East Zone reach the final of the Duleep Trophy for the second successive time after beating South by virtue of a 23-run first innings lead.
After East were bowled out for 215 in their second innings, South needed 239 runs in 51 overs (including the mandatory overs) in order to win the match. However, courtesy Dinda, victory was not on the South Zone players’ mind. Avoiding a defeat was.
South were reduced to 85 for eight at the start of the mandatory overs when the umpires decided to call off the match after consulting the two captains. They were in fact tottering at 42 for eight as Dinda had brilliant figures of 7/26, while Basant Mohanty took the other wicket.
Dinda, who thus bagged his 13th five-for in first-class cricket, terrorised the South Zone top-order in a single spell and squashed whatever dreams they had.
The pitch wasn’t an easy one to bat on as left-hander Abhinav Mukund was done in by a delivery that kept low. In his next over, right-hander Ramaswamy Prasanna was castled while the dangerous Robin Uthappa edged one to Nataraj Behera in the slip cordon. Manish Pandey was also castled by Dinda and South, at 16 for four, were virtually out of the match.
While Amit Verma, Stuart Binny and skipper Ranganath Vinay Kumar were also sent back cheaply by Dinda, Mohanty got rid off Abhimanyu Mithun. East will face Central in the final, which will be played in Chennai from Sunday.
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