After getting out a duck, East Zone captain Sourav Ganguly bagged three wickets to reduce West Zone to 61 for five at close on the first day of the Duleep Trophy final in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
West Zone lost five quick wickets to surrender the advantage they had gained on a track considered a paradise for batsmen after dismissing East Zone for a paltry 150 after Ganguly won the toss and elected to bat.
Neeraj Patel (8) and Parthiv Patel (1) were unbeaten when play was stopped for the day due to bad light.
Ganguly, who could only survive seven balls at the crease, rolled his hand over with the ball and provided East the initial breakthrough by getting the wicket of opener Aakash Christian for nine runs. He also picked the wickets of the second opener, Dheeraj Jadhav (15), and night watchman Rakesh Patel (1).
Earlier, West Zone pace bowlers especially Zaheer Khan (2-35), Rakesh Patel (2-22) and Munaf Patel (3-41) bowled a tight line and length to bundle out East in 55.3 overs.
Both Munaf and West Zone captain Sairaj Bahutule, who chipped in with three wickets, cleaned up the tail.
Ganguly, who has been left out of the Indian squad for the upcoming first three one-day games against South Africa, after facing three successive short-balls from Zaheer Khan, was castled for a duck to the very next in-swinging delivery in the 21st over.
He was among the six East Zone batsmen -- S S Das, V Sarvanam, L R Shukla, S Nadeem and S S Paul -- to get out without troubling the scorer.
Opener Arindam Das was the only East batsman to shine. He scored 56 off 139 deliveries.
Scorecard
East Zone (Ist innings):
Arindam Das lbw S Bahutule 56
S S Das c P Patel b R Patel 0
Sarvanan Vasanth c J Martin b R Patel 0
Deepdas Gupta c P Patel b Z Khan 24
Sourav Ganguly b Z Khan 0
Rohan Gavaskar b M Patel 29
L R Shukla c P Patel b M Patel 0
S Lahiri b M Patel 16
Shahbaz Naeem lbw S Bahutule 0
S S Paul lbw S Bahutule 0
Ranadeb Boase not out 04
Extras: (B-11, LB-5, NB-5) 21
Total: (in 55.3 overs) 150
Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-14, 3-53, 4-55, 5-123, 6-123, 7-135, 8-135, 9-145, 10-150.
Bowling: Zaheer Khan 14-5-35-2, Rakesh Patel 9-3-22-2, Munaf Patel 16.3-2-41-3, Ramesh Power 7-3-9-0, Sairaj Bahutule 9-0-27-3.
West Zone (Ist innings):
Aakash Christian c Aarindam Das b S.Ganguly 9
Dheeraj Jadhav lbw S Ganguly 15
Wasim Jaffar b R Bose 19
Jacob Martin lbw S S Paul 0
Neeraj Patel not out 8
Rakesh Patel lbw S Ganguly 1
Parthiv Patel not out 1
Extras: (B-2, LB-4, NB-2) 8
Total: (for 5 wkts in 32.5 overs) 61
Fall of wickets: 1-32, 2-33, 3-36, 4-56, 5-57.
Bowling: S S Paul 11-3-15-1, Ranadeb Bose 8-1-17-1, S.Ganguly 11-4-20-3, S.Nadeem 1.5-0-2-0, S.Lahiri 1-0-1-0.