Duleep Trophy 2022 Preview: Central Zone play West Zone; South Zone lock horns with North Zone

The Duleep Trophy 2022 has now moved into the semi-final stage. Central Zone will be up against the West Zone in the first semi-final in Coimbatore while South Zone will play North Zone in the second in Salem scheduled to begin on 15 September.

The respective quarter-final matches of both West Zone and North Zone ended in a draw but the two teams made a place in the semis on the basis of the first innings lead.

West Zone are coming into this game after scoring a huge amount of runs against North East Zone in their quarter-final match. While Prithvi Shaw struck a hundred in the first innings, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ajinkya Rahane notched up individual double tons to help the side post 590/2 (declare).

Later, Chintan Gaja scalped a four-fer as well as the North East Zone team was bowled out for 235. The West Zone had a centurion in the second innings too as Atit Sheth scored 102*. Mumbai stalwart Shams Mulani was also among runs as he missed out on a ton by just three runs as West Zone put up 268/5 before the match ended in a draw.

North Zone locked horns with East Zone in the quarter-final. Batting first, East Zone rode on a hundred from Virat Singh to put up 397 on the board. But North Zone batter Yash Dhull’s stunning 193 and half-centuries from Dhruv Shorey, Mandeep Singh and Himanshu Rana helped the team scored 545 in reply in the first innings, handing them a good first innings lead.

East Zone were later 102/3 when the match ended in a draw and North Zone marched ahead.

Central Zone comprise of some prominent names like Venkatesh Iyer, Ankit Rajpoot, Rinku Singh and Priyam Garg. The side would be led by Karan Sharma while the unit has Yash Dubey, Himanshu Mantri, Kumar Kartikeya and Shubham Sharma who were a part of the Madhya Pradesh team that lifted the Ranji Trophy earlier this year.

South Zone, which will be led by Hanuma Vihari, has the likes of Mayank Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Manish Pandey, K Gowtham, Baba Indrajith and R Sai Kishore in the ranks.

Squads

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.

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.

Central Zone: Karan Sharma (c), Shubham Sharma (vc), Himanshu Mantri (wk), Yash Dubey, Priyam Garg, Rinku Singh, Ashok Menaria, Akshay Wadkar (wk), Gaurav Yadav, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Dhopola, Aniket Chaudhary, Kumar Kartikey, Aditya Sarvatey, Ankit Rajpoot.

South Zone: Hanuma Vihari (c), Mayank Agarwal (vc), Rohan Kunnummal, Manish Pandey, Devdutt Padikal, Baba Indrajith, Eknath Kelkar, Ricky Bhui, Sai Kishore, K Gowtham, Basil Thampi, Ravi Teja, V.C. Stephen, Tanay Thyagarajan, Lakshay Garg.

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