HYDERABAD: Young Manish Pandey is one of the hot, uncapped Indian players of IPL-4. He went unsold, not going to his previous franchise. But the 21-year-old former Royal Challengers’ batsman was on song on Wednesday, as he smashed an unbeaten 203 (191b, 19x4, 7x6) for South Zone against Central Zone on the first day of the Duleep Trophy semifinal at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here. Thanks to Karnataka dasher’s double ton and his 174-run partnership for the third wicket with left-handed opener Abhinav Mukund (105; 146b, 21x4), South reached 416-8 at draw of stumps. Electing to bat, South floundered at the start. Robin Uthappa (1) was dismissed in the fifth over with South African umpire Brian Jerling declaring him out after the ball brushed his pads on way to the keeper. South lost their skipper Subramaniam Badrinath (13) at 56 when the batsman ran himself out. He went for a non-existent single after Abhinav had hit left-arm seamer RP Singh to mid-on. But thereafter it was Abhinav-Pandey show.
Tentative at the beginning, Mukund settled down to play some lovely drives. Pandey was all aggression from the start. The Central pace attack of Pankaj Singh, RP Singh and Umesh Yadav were clueless. To add to Central’s woes, the tall off-spinner Akshay Wakhare, who played in place of experienced left-arm spinner Murali Kartik, proved expensive. Pandey launched into Wakhare hitting him over long-on for sixes. The runs flowed and at lunch South were sitting pretty at 169 for 2, with Pandey slamming 65 off 45 balls and Abhinav 86.
Abhinav completed his century before he chased a wide RP Singh delivery and was caught at gully. But Pandey’s game flourished. Central skipper Hrishikesh Kantikar’s persistence of Wakhare proved costly. The off-spinner was hit for 36 runs in four overs after lunch. Pandey got to his century off 84 balls, hitting as many as five sixes off Wakhare. Pandey added 64 with Dinesh Karthik (37) for the fourth wicket. Umesh Yadav, who touched 145 kmph in the morning, brought the much-needed breakthrough when he had Karthik caught behind. Central could have captured the wicket of Pandey also but Pankaj Singh dropped a sitter at mid-off off RP Singh. The ba t s m an was on 127. Pankaj compensated for that lapse by taking the wickets of C Gautham and Vinay Kumar. Left-handed Amit Verma fell to Wakhare. Yet again the wicket proved to be a batsman’s paradise. There was bounce in the first few overs before it petered out.
