Task cut out for South Zone after Central’s mammoth finish

South Zone have a massive task ahead of them in the Duleep Trophy final after Central Zone finished with a mammoth first innings total of 511 that gave them a lead of 362 in the first innings.

Resuming at 384/5 on the third day, overnight batters Yash Rathod and Saransh Jain continued to keep South Zone at bay. Saransh, who had already picked up a five-fer with the ball, went on to bring up his fifty and at the other end, Rathod managed to go past 150. At one point it looked like these two would go on to add over 200 runs for the sixth wicket before Saransh finally lost his wicket while attempting a reverse sweep.

However, the agony continued for the bowling side with Deepak Chahar having some fun by smashing a couple of sixes in his 37. Rathod frustratingly missed out on a double ton as he got castled by Gurjapneet Singh for 194 and once he was dismissed, the tail immediately caved in. That didn't matter much though given Central Zone had already dragged their humoungous first innings lead past the 350-run mark.

With an uphill task ahead of them, South Zone put in a much better performance with the bat in their second essay. Tanmay Agarwal got going with a couple of boundaries off Chahar and Mohit Kale repeated the same to get some confidence. The openers put on 62 for the opening wicket before Saransh broke the partnership at the start of the final session. Smaran Ravichandran then walked out and showed some intent but saw Agarwal get castled at the other end as South Zone were pegged back in a matter of a couple of overs.

Unperturbed, Smaran continued to pick up boundaries and found good company in the form of Ricky Bhui who batted in positive fashion as well. The duo batted out the remaining overs in the day without losing further wickets as South Zone went into stumps with a deficit of 233. With two days still left in the game, South Zone's primary target will be to bat out the day tomorrow in order to see if they can push for a win on the final day with Central holding all the aces.

@B0$: South Zone 149 & 129/2 (Mohit Kale 38; Kuldeep Sen 1/22) trail Central Zone 511 (Yash Rathod 194, Rajat Patidar 101; Gurjapneet Singh 4/124) by 233 runs