Duleep Trophy 2023: Central Zone and North Zone advance into semis with thumping wins

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Saurabh Kumar picked 11 wickets including eight wickets in the second innings as Central Zone defeated East Zone by 170 runs to book a semi-final clash against West Zone in Duleep Trophy 2023.

Resuming from their overnight score 69 for 6, East Zone could not do much and were bundled out for 129 in 29.4 overs on Day 4 of the match in Alur on Saturday. Notably, the side scored 122 runs only in the first innings.

The presence of Riyan Parag (33 off 46) was the lone hope for East to at least run Central close. But that was soon snuffed out when left-arm spinner Saurabh trapped the Assam youngster in front of the wicket.

Saurabh soon added the wickets of Akash Deep, Shahbaz Nadeem and Ishan Porel to his kitty to walk away with an impressive figure of 8 for 64.

In the second quarter-final match in Bengaluru, North Zone thrashed North East Zone by 511 runs. North East Zone, who were bundled out for 134 in the first innings, could manage 154 runs only in the second innings. Off-spinner Pulkit Narang picked four wickets for 43 runs in 13.5 overs. Narang had picked three wickets in the first innings which had also seen veteran pacer Siddarth Kaul pick three wickets for 16 runs in eight overs.

Dhruv Shorey and Nishant Sindhu scored a first innings hundred for North Zone. Prabhsimran Singh, Ankit Kumar and Jayant Yadav scored a fifty each in the second innings.

The semi-final matches will begin from Wednesday, July 5.