Yousuf Pathan and Wasim Jaffer put on a century stand as West Zone thrashed defending champions North Zone by seven wickets on Sunday and enhanced their title hopes in the Deodhar Trophy tournament.
Pathan lived a charmed life on way to a swashbuckling 68, off 58 balls, inclusive of 11 fours, and put on 135 runs for the first wicket with Jaffer (63 in 78 balls) as West easily overhauled North's total of 252 for six with 14.4 overs to spare and collected a bonus point.
Pathan was let off thrice -- on 25, 58 and 64 -- and the costly errors by North, whose out-fielding and catching was awful, helped the Baroda all-rounder, promoted to open the innings for the second match running, to take away the match.
Pathan cleared the in-field with lofted cuts and pull shots and with the more correct. The sedate Jaffer laid the perfect platform for West to achieve the target in less than 40 overs, the cut-off mark to get the bonus point.
Ramesh Powar, sent in as a pinch-hitter at one-down, cracked 40 in 27 balls with eight fours and a six after Pathan's dismissal and ensured that the latter order batsmen did not have to take undue risks.
After Jaffer and Powar fell in quick succession after adding 56 runs for the second wicket briskly, West skipper Amol Muzumdar (28 not out) and Rohit Sharma (24 not out) guided the hosts home with an unbroken stand of 55 runs.
West have 14 points with a match in hand against South on March 11 while North have four, after a point was deducted from their tally, with two matches in hand.
Atrocious fielding by North was one of the main reasons for their comprehensive defeat after they had recovered from a sorry-reading 90 for 5 halfway through their innings to post a competitive score earlier in the day.
The revival was led by Pankaj Dharmani (77 not out), who was the common thread in two important stands.
He added 65 runs for the sixth wicket with Joginder Sharma (36) and 97 for the unfinished seventh wicket with Vipul Sharma, who used the long handle to make 56 in only 44 balls with two fours and three sixes.
But Sharma blotted his book when he and Paras Dogra got involved in a misunderstanding about who should take a dolly catch at covers off Pathan when he was 25 in a West score of 42 for none and the ball fell in between the two bewildered fielders. V R V Singh was the unlucky bowler.
Later Pathan was dropped by Gautam Gambhir after reaching his half century off the first ball bowled by Sarandeep Singh and another chance given by the batsman went abegging as
Gambhir once again scooped the ball only on the half volley.
These two errors, a spate of mis-fields and poor out-cricket let North down in the important tie.
West put on as many as 140 runs during the power plays to easily cross the target well within the 40-over mark.
North now need to win both their remaining ties, and at least one of them with a bonus point to their credit, and hope for bottom-placed South's victory over West to retain the crown.
Scorecard
North Zone:
K Goel c P Patel b R Patel 0
G Gambhir c Shah b Trivedi 7
D Mongia c P Patel b Nayar 41
S Dhawan lbw b Powar 20
P Dharmani not out 77
P Dogra c Trivedi b Powar 1
J Sharma c Trivedi b Bahutule 36
V Sharma not out 56
Extras: (lb-2, w-12) 14
Total: (for 6 wkts in 50 overs) 252
Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-33, 3-62, 4-82, 5-90, 6-155
Bowling: R Patel 10-0-56-1, Trivedi 10-1-51-1, Powar 10-1-40-2, Nayar 8-0-36-1, Bahutule 7-0-33-1, Y Pathan 5-0-34-0.
West Zone:
W Jaffer run out 63
Y Pathan c and b Sarandeep Singh 68
R Powar c Dogra b V R V Singh 40
A Muzumdar not out 28
R Sharma not out 24
Extras: (lb-9 wd-9, nb-12) 30
Total: (for 3 wkts in 35.2 overs) 253
Fall of wickets: 1-135, 2-191, 3-198
Bowling: Nehra 8-0-52-0, V R V Singh 8-0-58-1, Mongia 2-0-9-0, Vipul Sharma 9.2-0-68-0, Joginder Sharma 1-0-11-0, Sarandeep Singh 7-0-46-1.
