East Zone eliminate defending champions Central Zone to advance to Duleep Trophy finals

East Zone have eliminated defending champions Central Zone to advance to the final of the ongoing Duleep Trophy after a four‑wicket win in the first semifinal on September 1 at the BCCI Centre of Excellence Ground 1 in Bengaluru.

Chasing 159 in the fourth innings, East Zone got off to a splendid start as their opening pair of Abhimanyu Easwaran and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi added 61 runs. Easwaran was circumspect in his approach, while Sooryavanshi went after the Central Zone new‑ball attack.

Right‑arm seamer Yash Thakur provided Central Zone with the much‑needed breakthrough, sending Sooryavanshi back for 40 off 43 balls. The southpaw struck three fours and two sixes at a strike rate of 93.02, lifting pressure off the rest of the batting order. Easwaran fell soon after, becoming Harsh Dubey’s first of four victims. Virat Singh (12) and Kumar Kushagra (22) got starts but couldn’t take the team over the line.

East Zone skipper Ishan Kishan (39* off 41) batted with the same intensity as his vice‑captain Sooryavanshi, playing a fearless brand of cricket and ensuring East Zone got home with four wickets to spare.

Dubey was Central Zone’s most successful bowler and tried his heart out to restrict East Zone, but the lack of pressure from the other end meant the batters were rarely strained and eventually crossed the finish line comfortably.

Central Zone had defeated South Zone in the final of the previous edition of the Duleep Trophy under the leadership of Rajat Patidar.

Central Zone Squad

Playing XI: Aman Mokhade, Aryan Juyal (wk), Kunal Chandela, Yash Rathod, Rajat Patidar (c), Rinku Singh, Saransh Jain, Harsh Dubey, Arshad Khan, Yash Thakur, Aryan Pandey

Bench: Zeeshan Ansari, Nachiket Bhute, Kunal Singh Rathore, Aayush Pandey

East Zone Squad

Players: Abhimanyu Easwaran, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Kumar Kushagra, Sudip Kumar Gharami, Ishan Kishan (c) (wk), Virat Singh, Md Kounain Quraishi, Anukul Roy, Abhijit K Sarkar, Mohammed Shami, Mukesh Kumar

Bench: Shahbaz Ahmed, Subhranshu Senapati, Denish Das, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Shikhar Mohan