Duleep Trophy: North set-up semis date with South Zone

Left-arm spinners Abid Mushtaq and Nishant Sindhu took exactly 6.3 overs to polish off the West Zone tail as North Zone entered the Duleep Trophy semi-final with an impressive 52-run win duly completed here in the first hour of the final day. Chasing a tough target of 287 on a track that offered grip and turn, West started the final day at 220 for 7 with Urvil Patel (25) and the dependable Tanush Kotian (0) at the crease but were bowled out for 234 in 57.3 overs.

It was Mushtaq (4/60 in 22 overs), who cleaned up Kotian quickly to set the ball rolling and followed it up with the wicket of Tushar Deshpande (5), who resisted for 18 balls before being caught by Abdul Samad.

Mushtaq, however, was unlucky not to get his second five-wicket haul in the game as Sindhu found Urvil plumb in front to finish off the proceedings in style.

Fittingly, the 29-year-old Mushtaq was adjudged player-of the match for his match figures of 9/99.

The turning point of this game certainly will be West Zone skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad’s (66 off 70 balls) run-out after a comfortable 111-run stand with Musheer Khan (96). At that stage, West were cruising along at 195/3 in pursuit of 287 and it seemed like a cakewalk.

West lost four wickets, including Gaikwad and Musheer in less than seven overs for an addition of 25 runs and were pushed to wall by the end of the third day’s play. On a wicket where lot of deliveries kept low, scoring 67 with just three wickets in hand on the final day was akin to scoring more than ‘150’ if degree of difficulty had to be factored in.

North will now play South Zone, while East will take on Central in the semifinals starting at the COE from August 30. While the East versus NorthEast was predictable lopsided contest due to gulf in quality, this quarter-final had all ingredients of a humdinger after North were bowled out for 251 in their first innings.

This was after North Zone coaches Ajay Sharma and Sarandeep Singh in a very controversial move, dropped Ranji Trophy’s third-highest run-getter Sanat Sangwan (828 runs) to accommodate Yash Dhull, whose tally of runs stood at an unimpressive 381 during the last Ranji Trophy season.

Dhull failed miserably with scores of 9 and 0. However, having copped a lot of flak, it is expected that the controversial duo of Ajay-Sarandeep will do a course correction in the next game.