In a dominating win for Central Zone in the Duleep Trophy Quarter-final against East Zone, an out of favour Indian all-rounder Saurabh Kumar grabbed an eight-wicket haul. Central Zone eased past East Zone in the 1st Quater-final in Alur as Kumar grabbed the limelight with 11 wickets in both innings. In the other Quater-final of the tournament, North Zone registered a massive 511-run win over the North East Zone. The two teams have now qualified for the semifinals.
In the first quarterfinal, Central Zone's bowlers helped them big way after being bowled out for 182 in the first innings. Avesh Khan and Kumar grabbed three wickets each, while captain Shivam Mavi and Yash Thakur took two and one wickets each to stop Abhimanyu Easwaran's East at 122.
Coming into the second innings, openers Himanshu Mantri and Vivek Singh played important 68 and 56-run knocks to help the team set a 400-run target. In the defence, once part of India's Test squad, Kumar ran through the East Zone line-up and ended with figures of 12.4-3-33-8.
Speaking about the other qualifier, North Zone blew North East Zone to register a massive 511-run win. After scoring 540 in the first innings, Jayant Yadav's side piled up 259 runs in the second innings to set a daunting target of 666 runs. Apart from Kumar's eight wickets, captain Shivam Mavi and Avesh Khan took the remaining 2 wickets.
Saurabh Kumar was part of the Indian team earlier
Notably, Kumar was part of the Indian Test squad earlier in 2022 when they hosted Sri Lanka in March 2022. He replaced Axar Patel in the squad as Patel was not fully fit. Notably, the Uttar Pradesh spinner Kumar was also part of India A's Tour of South Africa a few months earlier. Kumar was also impressive with his performances on that Tour. He was also a standby for the three-match Test series against the Proteas that India went down by 1-2.
