da bet7： Skipper Vikram Rathour and Askash Chopra put on 237 runs off 61.4overs for the first wicket as holders North Zone ended at the happyposition of 336 for three off 90 overs on the opening day of theDuleep Trophy match against South Zone at the IGMC
da bwin： Staff and agencies04-Jan-2001Skipper Vikram Rathour and Askash Chopra put on 237 runs off 61.4overs for the first wicket as holders North Zone ended at the happyposition of 336 for three off 90 overs on the opening day of theDuleep Trophy match against South Zone at the IGMC stadium inVijayawada on Thursday.Rathour won a good toss and he and Chopra laid the foundation for animposing North Zone total. On a batsman friendly wicket, they dealtwith the varied South Zone attack confidently. Neither the seam ofDodda Ganesh, Thiru Kumaran or Robin Singh, nor the spin ofVenkatpathi Raju, Sunil Joshi and Aashish Kapoor bothered them and itwas not until just before tea that the stand was broken when Choprawas caught at silly point by substitute Nandakishore off Raju for 110.Chopra who batted 254 minutes, faced 207 balls and hit 17 fours.Yuvraj Singh hit the first ball he faced to the boundary and was outoff the next. He charged down the wicket to Raju and was stumped byTilak Naidu.Rathour and left hander Dinesh Mongia however prevented a collapse byadding 88 runs for the third wicket off 24.2 overs before the captainwas well caught on the leg side by a diving Tilak Naidu off Ganesh.Rathour, who batted 350 minutes, faced 237 balls and hit 16 fours anda six.Mongia, who batted aggresively, was unbeaten with 60 off 89 balls atstumps. He has so far hit 12 fours. Keeping him company is VirenderShewag with four. Raju took two for 86 off 28 overs and Ganesh one for37 off 12 overs. But the other four bowlers, all of whom have playedfor India, went wicketless.
