Duleep Trophy HIGHLIGHTS, semifinal Day 4: West Zone to play South Zone in final

Duleep Trophy, Indian domestic cricket: HIGHLIGHTS, score, and commentary from Day 4 of the Duleep Trophy matches.

Ravi Teja celebrates after reaching his 100. | Photo Credit: Lalith Kalidas

Hello and welcome to the the HIGHLIGHTS from Sportstar’s coverage of the Duleep Trophy semifinals in Salem and Coimbatore. The news and inputs were provided by our reporters on ground - Dhruva Prasad and Lalith Kalidas.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: A brilliant catch by Manish Pandey at second slip finds the eighth North Zone wicket. The next over the ninth wicket falls. Navdeep Saini will not be batting and that is the end of the match. South Zone beats North Zone by 650 runs.

Biggest wins by runs in First Class cricket in India

725 - Mumbai vs Uttarakhand, 2022
650 - South Zone vs North Zone, 2022*
552 - South Zone vs Central Zone, 2010-11

South Zone's win is also the 4th highest ever in First Class cricket history.@sportstarweb#DuleepTrophypic.twitter.com/2l3XsFwSgy

— Lalith Kalidas (@lal__kal) September 18, 2022

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 86/7 in 22.5 overs: Yash Dhull’s stoic effort comes to an end. Gowtham cleans him up for 59. North Zone nearing a dismal defeat.

Dhruva Prasad from Salem: Prithvi Shaw named Player of the Match. Not surprising.

Prithvi Shaw scored 202 runs in the match and won the Player of the Match award. | Photo Credit: Periasamy M

Dhruva Prasad from Salem: Shams Mulani gets a fifer and it’s all over. West Zone beats Central Zone by 279 runs and sails into the final.

Dhruva Prasad from Salem: Central Zone 213/9 in 56 overs: The wickets keep faillng. Another duck for Central as Gaurav Yadav walks back without opening his account.

Dhruva Prasad from Coimbatore: Central Zone 213/8 in 55.2 overs: OUT! Rinku Singh’s breezy knock comes to an end. In the very next over, Rajpoot goes for a duck as Unadkat strikes.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 72/6 in 13.2 overs: Maiden 10-wicket haul in First Class cricket for Sai Kishore! Anmol Malhotra nicks one to wicketkeeper Ricky Bhui.

Meanwhile, play has resumed at Coimbatore.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 71/5 in 12.5 overs: Third duck of the innings as Himanshu Rana is caught behind off Tanay Thyagarajan. Looks like South Zone can shake hands after properly bowling them out by 2:10pm.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 66/4 in 11.3 overs: A duck for North Zone captain Mandeep Singh as Sai Kishore bags his ninth wicket of the match. This is his best bowling figures in a First Class match.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 65/3 in 11 overs: Thyagarajan skids one past Dhruv Shorey’s defence and rattles the stumps. He goes for a duck.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 64/2 in 9.5 overs: Eighth wicket of the match for Sai Kishore as Nishant Sindhu’s mistimed slog is caught at long-on.

Dhruva Prasad from Coimbatore: The covers come on as rain comes down in Coimbatore. Central Zone 199/6 in 50.2 overs. Rinku is unbeaten on 59 off 55 with Menaria on 22 off 55.

Ground staff rushes with the covers as umpires ask the players to leave the field. | Photo Credit: Dhruva Prasad

Central Zone 198/6 in 50 overs vs West Zone: Rinku Singh continues with his fluent stroke play and brings up his fifty. He is currently batting on 58 runs.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: North Zone 23/1 in 4.3 overs: First wicket for South Zone as K Gowtham strikes. Manan Vohra finds Mayank Agarwal at long-on.

Dhruva Prasad from Coimbatore: Central Zone 165/6 in 43 overs: Back after Lunch. Rinku and Menaria at the crease. Rinku races to 41 off 42 balls.

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: Back for the second session. North Zone openers Manan Vohra and Yash Dhull at the crease. K Gowtham takes the new ball for South

And play resumes after the Lunch break.

Lunch Update

Central Zone 155/6 in 41 overs at Lunch on Day 4. An eventful session, with 122 runs coming in 31.3 overs. Captains can decide to shake hands at 2:40 PM IST.

South Zone has finally DECLARED with a 744-run lead. North Zone to bat after the break and the teams can choose to shake hands as early as 2:10pm.

Lalith from Salem: Second First Class hundred for T Ravi Teja. He gets there with seven fours and three sixes. He received a reprieve from the forward short leg fielder on 99 but a brilliant innings nevertheless.

Dhruva from Coimbatore: Ashok Menaria comes in to bat as concussion replacement for Venkatesh Iyer in Central Zone’s second innings. West Zone needs four wickets to reach the final.

Dhruva from Coimbatore: Shubham Sharma and Priyam Garg have fallen in quick succession. Central Zone 108/5. West Zone five wickets away from a spot in the final. 

Dhruva from Coimbatore: Wicket! First of the morning for West Zone as Kartikeya loses his off stump driving outside off. Atit Sheth gets his first. Central Zone 97/3.  

Lalith from Salem: Fifty for T Ravi Teja off 66 deliveries. Makes the most of his promotion to no. 3. Seems to be developing as a handy all-round option for his teams. 

Lalith from Salem: South Zone 175/2 in 33 overs. Mayank Agarwal is clean bowled by Mayank Dagar for 64. Baba Indrajith enters at 4.

Thanks to all my supporters and cricket lovers for showering your concerns . ❤️
My physios and doctors are completely taking good care of me and I'm feeling alright ! 😇

And it is very natural for such incidents to happen on field #TakenInARightSpirit

— Venkatesh Iyer (@venkateshiyer) September 17, 2022

Dhruva from Coimbatore: Central Zone 54/2 in 15 overs. Shubham and Kartikeya have struck four boundaries already with the pacers erring in length slightly and pitching it up. Variable bounce on this wicket now, with one from Unadkat keeping low and rapping Kartikeya on the pads. 

Dhruva from Coimbatore: Formalities await on Day 4. Central Zone needs 468 runs to win and the best it could hope for is a day of batting practice ahead of a full-fledged domestic season. Meanwhile, West Zone will look to seal the contest as soon as possible and give its players some rest ahead of the final.

Lalith from Salem: Just another day in Indian domestic cricket which makes you rethink the case of deciding a match on first-innings lead. However, to its credit, South Zone has done well to earn the innings lead and even pushed it past the 500-mark on Day 3. While formalities await, Hanuma Vihari’s South Zone will hope to test specific aspects before possibly shaking hands at Tea.

South Zone skipper Hanuma Vihari interacts with kids from the Super Kings academy before the start of play. @sportstarweb#DuleepTrophypic.twitter.com/SXxwQ3wgKK

— Lalith Kalidas (@lal__kal) September 18, 2022

How the matches have panned out so far:

In Coimbatore: West pressed home its advantage in its second innings and set Central a humongous target of 501. Central Zone is 33/2 in response.

In Salem: After Sai Kishore’s best First Class bowling figures (25-4-70-7) had skittled North Zone for 207 on a surface aiding spin, South Zone skipper Hanuma Vihari decided against enforcing the follow-on. Mayank Agarwal (53 batting) and Ravi Teja (19 batting) finished on 157 for one.

TOSS UPDATE:

South Zone has won the toss and elected to bat.

Central Zone has won the toss and elected to bowl

Lalith Kalidas from Salem: Good morning from the SCF ground in Salem. The Duleep Trophy semifinal between North Zone and South Zone will be underway shortly. Both teams are going through their warmups. The wicket looks benign with tinges of green.

Dhruva Prasad from Coimbatore: “Looks a like a dry wicket here at SNR College Cricket Ground for the Duleep Trophy semifinal between West Zone and Central Zone. Just a tinge of grass on what looks like a belter.” Meanwhile, Prithvi Shaw and Yashasvi Jaiswal have had some intense slip catching drills this morning.

FULL SQUADS

Central Zone: Priyam Garg, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Akshay Wadkar(w), Ashok Menaria, Karan Sharma(c), Shubham S Sharma, Kumar Kartikeya, Ankit Rajpoot, Aniket Choudhary, Gaurav Yadav, Aditya Sarwate, Deepak Dhapola, Yash Dubey, Himanshu Mantri

West Zone: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Prithvi Shaw, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Tamore (wk), Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian, Shardul Thakur, Rahul Tripathi, Satyajeet Bachhav, Het Patel, Chintan Gaja, Jaydev Unadkat, Chirag Jani, Atit Sheth.

Standby players: Siddharth Desai, Suved Parkar, Armaan Jaffer.

North Zone: Yash Dhull, Dhruv Shorey (vc), Manan Vohra, Mandeep Singh (c),Himanshu Rana, Akash Vashisht, Anmol Malhotra, Mayank Dagar, Pulkit Narang, Navdeep Saini, Siddharth Kaul, Jagjit Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Qamran Iqbal, Vikas Mishra.

Standby players: Amit Rana, Ankit Kalsi, Fazil Rashid, Baltej Singh , Raj Angad, Abdul Samad.

South Zone: Mayank Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Baba Indrajith(w), Hanuma Vihari(c), Manish Pandey, Ricky Bhui, Krishnappa Gowtham, Tanay Thyagarajan, Basil Thampi, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Lakshay Garg, Eknath Kerkar, Telukupalli Ravi Teja, Rohan Kunnummal, Cheepurapalli Stephen

Here is W.V. Raman’s latest episode on where he talks about India’s domestic cricket season:

WHERE TO WATCH DULEEP TROPHY 2022-23 LIVE?

The Duleep Trophy isn’t available for live telecast or live streaming. Only the final will be broadcast by the Star Sports Network.