India's new domestic season commenced on June 28 (Wednesday) with multi-day tournament Duleep Trophy. Central Zone locked horns with East Zone while North and North-North-East Zone locked horns in two different quarter-finals as some top players shined for their respective teams. Rinku Singh, the star player of Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL), top-scored for Central Zone in the low-scoring innings.
The left-hander stood tall for his side scoring 38 runs while batting at number five and smashed six fours during his stay in the middle. He was expected to score big and the youngster showed off his talent as well but couldn't go beyond the 38-run mark thanks to Shahbaz Ahmed who dismissed him. The latter played for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in IPL and impressed in his first red-ball outing of the season with two wickets in 17 overs.
Central Zone could only score 182 runs in their first innings before getting bundled out. However, they hit back with the ball before the end of day's play as Avesh Khan struck twice with the new ball pinning the East Zone openers in front of the stumps.
In the other quarter-final, Dhruv Shorey turned out to be the star player for North Zone scoring 135 runs while opening the innings. He slammed 22 fours during his knock and only got out in the final session of the innings. Apart from him, Nishant Sindhu, who was part of Chennai Super Kings's title triumph in IPL 2023, also shined with the bat scoring an unbeaten 76 before end of day's play. North Zone ended the day's play at 306/6 after 87 overs and will be looking to add more runs on the second morning.
