A star-studded West Zone will take on a buoyant Central Zone, which comes into the contest after having beaten East Zone in the quarterfinal, in the Duleep Trophy semifinal at the Alur (I) Cricket Ground in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Defending champion West, captained by Priyank Panchal, boasts a hefty batting lineup with Cheteshwar Pujara, Suryakumar Yadav, Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan building an envious spine.
West’s bowling looks light compared to its batting, particularly in the absence of the Saurashtra left-arm pace duo of Jaydev Unadkat – who was picked for India’s tour of West Indies – and Chetan Sakariya, who pulled out earlier this week due to an injury.
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But it still has the likes of Shams Mulani, Chintan Gaja, Arzan Nagwaswalla and Tushar Deshpande (who was roped in as Sakariya’s replacement) to call upon against a Central batting lineup which didn’t look assured against East Zone.
Central, which is winless against West in the Duleep Trophy since 1998, had a topsy-turvy encounter with the East, where it had to battle through some nervy phases of play before emerging winner.
Led by first-time captain Shivam Mavi, Central’s bowling shone against East, with pacer Avesh Khan and left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar doing the star turn. The latter was particularly potent in the second innings, where he took career-best figures of eight for 64.
“Batting wasn’t easy in the East Zone game [which happened at the same ground]. Both the outfield and the wicket were slow. The pitch was also a bit unpredictable, particularly in the second innings,” said Mavi.
A lot of eyes will be on Pujara, who will be playing his first competitive game after the World Test Championship (WTC) final defeat to Australia, following which he was left out of the Indian Test team for the West Indies series.
Mumbai middle-order batter Sarfaraz too will have an axe to grind, after not being picked for the Test side, despite averaging 106.07 in First-Class cricket in the last three years.
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West, which earned direct qualification to the semifinal this time, courtesy of its final entry last year, has long been locked in battle with North Zone for Duleep Trophy supremacy, with the two sides tied at 18 titles.
With North going up against South Zone in the other semifinal, Panchal’s men will be urged-on even more to find their way past Central to reach a record-extending 34th final and possibly a record-breaking 19th title.
With rain clouds hovering ominously over Alur, the match could go down as a shootout for the first-innings lead.
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