Central Zone has been on fire in the ongoing Duleep Trophy as after winning the quarter-final by 170 runs against the East Zone, they had West Zone on the mat in the semi-final as skipper Shivam Mavi ran riot on Wednesday, July 5. All four players discarded from the Indian Test team had a poor outing as West Zone was reduced to 65/5. While most of them failed to convert their starts, Sarfaraz Khan got out for a 12-ball duck.
Prithvi Shaw, coming from a poor IPL season, was the first to depart after scoring 26 runs. Priyank Panchal, another Test hopeful after a good Ranji Trophy season was the next to go after scoring 13 runs. Suryakumar Yadav was the next in line as Mavi dismissed him for 7. Mavi didn't take much time to get his second wicket as he got rid of Sarfaraz for a duck.
West Zone went from 43/0 to 56/4. Cheteshwar Pujara spent the most time at the crease. He defied a brilliant Mavi, who had his tails up and the Lucknow Super Giants duo of Avesh Khan and Yash Thakur. However, Pujara's defiance was ended by Mavi himself. The veteran played 103 balls but scored 28 runs only before becoming Centrol Zone captain's third victim.
The likes of Pujara and Surya were the ones dropped from the Test team recently after the World Test Championship (WTC) final while Sarfaraz hasn't done his chances good one bit by not troubling the scorers after being the highest run-scorers in the last two Ranji Trophy seasons combined.
As for the game, West Zone were 110/6 after Pujara's departure staring at an early all-out before Atit Sheth and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja kept the in-form Central Zone bowling attack at bay. While Sheth smashed a half-century, Jadeja too has played more than 80 balls for his 36. The duo has now stitched an uneaten 70-run stand and will hope to take their side to safer shores.
