All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

266 Mohanty and could only manage 20 before he was bowled by a ball that angled in, pitched middle and leg, and moved away. With six wickets down and the score only 49 a poor total looked likely. However East Zone effected a slight recovery, mainly thanks to Sunil Joshi, a left-arm spinner and left-hand batsman who had played in the last of his 15 Tests (one fifty, one five-for) a couple of months before, and who at least saw his side to three figures. When he eventually left, Mohanty had to watch while medium pacer Pinninti Jayachandra had an over at batsmen nine and ten. Srinath made four Test fifties, but leg-spinner Balaji Rao, playing in the penultimate match of a 33-match career, never got past 27 and Mohanty was probably a bit worried that the chance of an all- ten might be denied him. Fortunately Jayachandra managed not to strike and Mohanty had another over. He made no mistake, bowling Srinath with his third ball and last man Venkatesh Prasad with his sixth. Taking seven wickets without help from the field he had become the fifth Indian bowler to take an all-ten, with only Chatterjee performing the feat at lesser expense. For a while the East Zone innings was remarkably similar to that of their opponent’s: there was an early collapse, the first six wickets being taken by the same opening bowler (Srinath), before the later batsmen and tail righted things a little, taking the score from 33 for six to 124 all out just before the end of an eventful first day. Next day Mohanty again dismissed both openers. However this time Laxman (40) and Dravid (66) both contributed, although nobody else did much in another low score. Mohanty finished with four wickets while slow left-armer Sukhvinder Singh took the other six. East Zone needed 167 to win. It was still touch and go. Two wickets went early, including the unfortunate Rashmi Parida, who was bowled by Srinath without scoring for the second time in the match. (He would find consolation later in the season with successive scores of 220 and 162 for Orissa.) With plenty of time left Das dug in for a three-hour 79. When he finally went 44 runs were still needed with only four wickets left, but Dasgupta (32 not out) atoned for his first innings duck and together with Singh (22 not out), who had top scored in the first innings with 31, the first of his three important contributions in the match, saw his side home. Not surprisingly Mohanty performed at a more modest level for the rest of the season; however his final total of 58 wickets at only 16.27 each was surpassed only by Harbhajan Singh’s 70. In a career that ended in 2010 Mohanty took 417 first-class wickets at 21.05 apiece and a further 160 in List A matches. He also spent three years playing for Colwyn Bay in the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition, and was later appointed coach of Orissa and of East Zone. Debasis Mohanty