An epic partnership between Tilak Varma and Shreyas Gopal saw South Zone fight back in style to secure the first innings lead against North Zone in the Duleep Trophy semifinal. South Zone, who were 40/2 by stumps on the opening day in response to North Zone’s 195, began on a poor note. The set batter N Jagadeesan was castled by Gurnoor Brar before the pacer struck in quick succession again to bag two more wickets to reduce South Zone to 80/5.
North Zone were clearly the favourites to bag the first innings lead at that point given they were comfortably ahead by over 100 runs. However, Gopal and Varma joined forces together at a crucial juncture to bail their side out of trouble. The duo batted for more than 50 overs to frustrate the North Zone bowling attack given one more wicket at that stage would have potentially given them an opening.
At one point, both the batters were on course to reaching three figures before Arshdeep Singh finally ended the massive 175-run stand with Gopal departing for 88. Varma however went on to complete his century even though he kept losing partners at the other end. Eventually by stumps, South Zone had a lead of 90 runs with one more wicket left to add to the tally.
In the other semifinal, East Zone squandered a great opportunity to take complete control of the fixture especially after the start they made with the bat in response to Central Zone’s 266. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was in his elements and put on a show by smashing seven sixes in an entertaining opening partnership that yielded 161 runs. But once he departed eight runs short of a century, the innings derailed completely.
Harsh Dubey, who dismissed Sooryavanshi, struck with the very next delivery as well to get rid of Kumar Kushagra. Even though Abhimanyu Easwaran attempted to steady the ship with a 39-run stand with Sudip Gharami, wickets fell in heaps thereafter as Aryan Pandey, Yash Thakur and Dubey triggered a spectacular collapse that saw them lose their last 8 wickets for just 66 runs.
That meant both teams cancelling out each other in the first innings with the game now turning into a second-innings shootout. But Central Zone’s quest to make amends with the bat didn’t yield the desired result. Mukesh Kumar broke the opening partnership very early before castling Rajat Patidar for just 5. Sandwiched between those two dismissals was Aryan Juyal’s wicket that was bagged by Mohammed Shami as Central Zone went into stumps at a precarious 43/3.
Leave a Reply