Duleep Trophy 2023: West Zone reach final after edging out Central Zone through first-innings lead

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West Zone reached the Duleep Trophy 2023 final by the virtue of first innings lead as their semifinal match against Central Zone ended in a draw in Alur (near Bengaluru) on Saturday. Central Zone were chasing 399 on the final day before rain halted their innings at 128/4.

The summit clash between West and either South Zone or North Zone will be held at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium from July 12. West, perhaps, could have gone hunting for the remaining six wickets had the weather remained clear.

But eventually West were not in need of that because they had a 98-run first innings lead in the bank to garner a favourable result. Starting the fourth and final day from 292 for 9, West Zone could add only 5 more runs before getting bowled out.

Openers Vivek Singh and Himanshu Mantri returned to the hut without offering much fight, reducing Central to 17 for 2. Dhruv Jurel started off well in the company of Amandeep Khare but left-arm spinner Dharmendra Jadeja had him stumped by Het Patel as Central further slipped to 55 for 3.

Rinku Singh provided some artificial excitement to the proceedings, slamming a 30-ball 40. Rinku put the West bowlers through the wringer in the last hour before lunch. Target was bordering on impossible alright, but Rinku, who had hammered 5 sixes for Kolkata Knight Riders against Yash Dayal of Gujarat Titans in IPL 2023, would have none of it.

Jadeja suffered the brunt of his aggression, getting hammered for two sixes and one of them even landed in the KSCA (2) grounds. But then such targets in the longer format is way beyond a one man show. The left-hander from Uttar Pradesh holed out to Arzan Nagwaswalla in the deep to bring curtains to the entertainment.

With inputs from PTI