Duleep Trophy: Vidwath Kaverappa's Seven-for, Gritty Batters Give South Zone Control

South Zone underpropped the effort of their bowlers with plucky batting in their second innings, reaching 181 for seven to take reins of the Duleep Trophy final on the third day on Friday. South are now ahead by a healthy 248 runs. Earlier, pacer Vidwath Kaverappa bagged seven wickets (7/53) as South wasted little time in bowling out West for 146 to grab a first innings lead of 67 runs. It was Vidwath's career-best first-class bowling figures, and second best for South Zone in Duleep Trophy after Venkatesh Prasad's 7 for 38 against North Zone in 1993.

South's charge to that position of strength with the bat was tectonic. They made a stuttering start to their second innings losing R Samarth and N Tilak Varma in quick succession.

Samarth was undone by a Chintan Gaja delivery that kept a tad low, while Arzan Nagwaswalla managed to sneak the ball between Tilak's bat and pads to rearrange the stumps.

South were 8 for 2 at that stage, and it was not an ideal situation for them as the lead had not even crossed 100.

However, Mayank Agarwal and Hanuma Vihari dented West's ambitions of making further inroads. The third wicket pair added 64 runs in a little more than 14 overs to bring South back into the game.

But the partnership was not as smooth as one would expect considering two experienced batsmen were in the middle.

There were several plays and misses, loud appeals, edges that fell short of fielders but Mayank and Vihari were strong enough to waddle through those external pressure points.

But just as the partnership was blossoming, Mayank's effort to pull Nagwaswalla's short-pitched ball ended in the hands of Suryakumar Yadav.

However, Mayank was not one bit happy about it as Nagwaswalla had already bowled two allotted