India, Sept. 9 -- Veteran pacer Mohammad Shami's decisive blows while operating in short spells helped East Zone close in on the Duleep Trophy title, reducing South Zone to 242 for six on the third day of the final here on Tuesday.

Skipper Tilak Varma (56, 133b) and CV Milind (0) were batting at stumps after Shreyas Gopal (26) got out in the closing minutes of the day. South still trail by 466 runs and overhauling East's humongous 708 is nearly impossible from this point.

Shami's three spells on the day were - 3-2-1-0, 4-1-10-1 and 4-1-6-1 - for an overall 11-4-17-2 and the short bursts were, perhaps, prompted by the humid Chennai conditions.

While the numbers do not look intimidating, they offered ample evidence of Shami's control ove...