Jaffer, Rahane tame Lions'

After the first day domination of England Lions, the Mumbaikar-duo of Ajinkya Rahane and Indian Test opener Wasim Jaffer combined well to tame the Lions’ taking West Zone to a healthy 187 for one in their first innings, replying against Lions’ 355, after the end of the second day of the Duleep Trophy match played at the Motibag stadium here on Tuesday.

The Mumbai lad Rahane grabbed the opportunity with full hands after the early exit of opener Sahil Kukreja. Kukreja went back to pavilion without troubling the scorer in the second delivery of West’s innings.

Rahane scored a strokeful unbeaten 93 and stitched a crucial 187-run partnership with experienced Jaffer, who remained not out on 82, for the second wicket to put West Zone team in a commanding position.

The partnership raised hopes for West Zone, as they needed an outright victory to make it to the final while Lions’ are through with a draw only. Rahane displayed some fine attacking shots against Lions’s opening bowlers Graham Onions and Steve Kirby.

Rahane made 93 off 154 balls and studded 18 boundaries in his 225 minutes stay while Jaffer's 82 came in 227 minutes in 181 balls that included 13 fours. The youngster exhibited some good attacking game while Jaffer played the role of sheet anchor to his perfection.

Lions’ skipper Yardy rotated as many as six bowlers, who bowled their heart out, to break this pair but remained ineffective till the close of the play. England’s tweaker Monty Panesar also couldn’t even provide them the much-needed breakthrough after he joined the proceedings in the 15th over.

Earlier, resuming from their overnight score of 273 for four, England Lions were all out for 355 runs in their first essay. Overnight batsmen Yardy and Onion could only add 49 runs before Yardly was castled by seamer Sandeep Jobanputra.

Yardy scored 169 runs, which included 23 fours. Yardy and Onions added another 55 runs for the fifth wicket partnership. Rakesh Dhruv picked up three wickets for West.

SCOREBOARD

England Lions First innings: Michael Carberry lbw b Makda 1, Joe Denly (run out) 32, Michael Yardy b Jobanputra 169, Ed Joyce lbw b Makda 32, Jon Trott lbw b Makda 44, Graham Onions c Kukreja b Jobanputra 31, James Foster lbw b Dhruv 0, Adil Rashid (not out) 9, Liam Plunkett c Kukreja b Powar 19, Steve Kirby lbw b Dhruv 3, Monty Panesar c Pujara b Dhruv 1

Extras: 14 (b-4, lb-8, nb-2) Total: 355 all out in 126 overs Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-51, 3-126, 4-267, 5-322, 6-323, 7-323, 8-342, 9-353 and 10-355.

West Zone bowling: Trivedi 22-0-73-0, Makda 18-4-61-3, Jobanputra 13-4-44-2, Powar 26-5-62-1, Dhruv 24-9-53-3, Pathan 21-7-39-0, Rahane 2-0-11-0.

West Zone First innings: Sahil Kukreja c Foster b Onions 0, Wasim Jaffer (batting) 82, Ajinkya Rahane (batting) 93

Extras: 12 (b-2, lb-3, nb-7) Total: 187 for one wicket in 55 overs. Fall of wicket: 1-0.

England bowling: Onions 11-1-41-1, Kirby 12-1-34-0, Panesar 9-3-29-0, Plunkett 9-2-25-0, Trott 6-2-16-0, Rashid 8-0-37-0.