Duleep Trophy : Central to face East, South meet North in semifinals on Sunday
The Duleep Trophy moves into its semifinal stage on Sunday, with defending champions Central Zone taking on East Zone, and last year's runners-up South Zone facing North Zone.
Central and South enter the last four on direct entry, having not played a quarterfinal. East and North both won their way through — East thrashing North East Zone by an innings and 210 runs, and North edging a strong West Zone side by 52 runs.
Central are led by Rajat Patidar for a second straight season and retain much of the squad that won the title last year, with Rinku Singh as vice-captain. Their bowling attack features Saransh Jain and Harsh Dubey, both of whom have played international cricket recently, alongside pacer Yash Thakur and spinner Zeeshan Ansari.
East Zone's quarterfinal win was built on centuries from Sudip Gharami and Shahbaz Ahmed, with Shahbaz taking four wickets and Anukul Roy claiming a five-wicket haul. The side is captained by Ishan Kishan and also includes Abhimanyu Easwaran and teenager Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
In the second semifinal, South Zone will be led by new captain Tilak Varma, with Ricky Bhui, Narayan Jagadeesan and Karun Nair in the batting line-up, and Shreyas Gopal, Tanay Thyagarajan and Vidwath Kaverappa leading the bowling attack.
North Zone's quarterfinal win over West Zone was powered by left-arm spinner Abid Mushtaq's match figures of 9/99. The side left out Sanat Sangwan, the tournament's third-highest run-scorer for North, in favour of Yash Dhull, who scored nine and a duck in the quarterfinal. Pacer Gurnoor Brar, who took 10 wickets for India A in Galle, is likely to replace Sunil Kumar in the XI. Vice-captain Ayush Badoni scored fifties in both innings against West Zone, with Abdul Samad and Anshul Kamboj also part of the batting unit.
