Day 2 of the MRF Buchi Babu Tournament final on Wednesday at Chepauksaw New Zealand ‘A’ continue to dominate

Staff Reporter29-Aug-2001Day 2 of the MRF Buchi Babu Tournament final on Wednesday at Chepauksaw New Zealand ‘A’ continue to dominate. First they piled up amammoth 486/7 declared in their first essay. And then their bowlersreduced Cricket Association of Bengal to 74/5 after 31 overs.In the morning, Lou Vincent and Hamish Marshall continued to dominatethe Bengal bowling. They put on 127 runs before Vincent (101) wasdismissed soon after he reached his ton. Marshall though refused toperish. The Bengal skipper Rohan Gavaskar dismissed Vincent with hisslow left-arm orthodox bowling. Marshall remained unbeaten on 78 notout at Lunch after Oram (16) and Sulzberger (1) failed. Stumper ChrisNevin was new at the wicket and gave Marshall company.After Lunch, runs started to flow at a more brisk rate, with Marshalland Nevin scoring comfortably. Half an hour before the Tea break,Nevin hit back a ball from Soumen Singh and was dismissed for 67 (7×4,1×6) after adding a very useful 126 runs for the 7th wicket withMarshall. Marshall remained unbeaten on 124 when Matthew Bell decidedto have a go at the Bengal batsmen and declared with the score on 486for 7. Marshall was the man to watch through the day. The innings ofNew Zealand ‘A’ was entirely build around Marshall, though Vincent andNevin made more than useful contributions.For the CAB XI, Shukla and Lahiri picked 2 wickets each. None of theseven bowlers used by Gavaskar ended with economical figures.New Zealand ‘A’ had a minor setback as Nevin was injured in the secondover of the CAB XI’s innings. Vincent donned the gloves from then on.To everyone’s surprise, Vincent had four catches coming his way and heaccepted all of them to put Bengal in a distressing position.The highest scorer for CAB XI was their skipper Gavaskar with 27. Hesent the ball six times to the fence and looked good but did not lastlong. Bond managed to get the better of Gavaskar as Vincent bagged yetanother catch behind the stumps. CAB XI had lost half their side withjust 64 on the board. Soumen Singh (12*) and Sanyal (3*) batted out theremaining four overs and live to fight tomorrow.Oram sent down just four overs out of the 31 and picked up two wicketsgiving away a miserly eight runs. Bond, Drum and Sulzberger wererewarded with one wicket each at the end of the day.New Zealand ‘A’ seem to have this match sewn up. Something miraculouswould have to happen for the CAB XI team to stop the visitors. All itwill take from here is some disciplined bowling and New Zealand ‘A’should be able to wrap this up comfortably tomorrow.