Kuldeep's guile puts India Red in driver's seat

Young chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav kept the opposition batsmen on tenterhooks with a maiden five wicket haul as he took India Red on the cusp of an outright victory against the Green team in the inaugural Day/Night Duleep Trophy encounter here.

Chasing a mammoth victory target of 497, the Green team was tottering at 217/7 at the end of penultimate evening with another 280 runs to win the match.

Suresh Raina was at the crease batting on 35.

The Red team scored a commendable 486 in their second innings riding on twin hundreds from Abhinav Mukund (169) and Sudip Chatterjee (114). However the score reached close to 500 due to Gurkeerat Singh Mann's brisk 82 off 96 balls.

The third evening certainly belonged to Kuldeep who troubled all the batsmen with his deception. He ended with figures of 5/55 in 13 overs.

The pink Kookaburra did not lose its shine and there wasn't much turn on offer. But Kuldeep, whose stock delivery is the wrong 'un, was able to deceive the batsmen with his dip and drift.

India Green, who were cruising along at 122/1, slumped to 131/4 as Kuldeep shared three wickets with addition of nine runs.

First to go was Uthappa as he tried to play forward and was foxed by the drift. The ball turned away from him to take an outside edge with Yuvraj pouching onto a low catch at first slip. Then it was Rajat Paliwal (0) who was adjudged leg before to a delivery that broke back to catch him on the backfoot. Parthiv was done in by the dip as he remained inside the crease and was hit on the back leg.

Brief Scores: India Red 161 & 486 (Abhinav Mukund 169, Sudip Chatterjee 114, Gurkeerat Singh Mann 82, Shreyas Gopal 5/123)

India Green 151 and 217/7 (Raina 35 batting, Uthappa 72, Kuldeep Yadav 5/55).