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Saurabh Kumar’s four-fer puts Central Zone on the verge of thumping win
Follow UsIn the other quarter-final, North Zone put themselves in pole position to register a mammoth win against North East Zone
Left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar followed up his three-wicket haul in the first innings with a stunning four-fer on Day 3 to put Central Zone on the verge of a thumping win against East Zone in the quarter-finals of Duleep Trophy 2023.
After taking 10 Central Zone wickets in the span of 52 overs, Abhimanyu Easwaran’s East Zone side walked out hopeful of knocking off the 300 set by Shivam Mavi’s men to book a spot in the semi-finals. But Saurabh Kumar spun a web around the East Zone batters as the 30-year-old took 4/33 off the 12 overs he bowled to reduce Easwaran’s side to 69/6 at the end of the third day.
The first of Kumar’s four wickets was the biggest one, of that of skipper Easwaran. The left-arm spinner castled the experienced opener to draw first blood and add to the 27-year-old’s woes. Two overs later, Avesh Khan removed Sudip Kumar Gharami for a duck post which it was the complete Saurabh Kumar show. In a rampant spell, the 30-year-old ran through the East Zone batting as he removed all of Anustup Majumdar, Shahbaz Ahmed and Shantanu Mishra to reduce EZ to 62/5.
Shivam Mavi then struck on the final over of the day — removing wicket-keeper Kumar Kushagra for a duck — to reduce East zone to 69/6.
Riyan Parag, who top scored for East Zone in the first innings with 33, is still unbeaten on 6*, but Easwaran’s side have a near-impossible task ahead of them, still needing 231 more runs to win with just four wickets in hand.
North Zone close-in on huge victory
In the other quarter-final, meanwhile, Jayant Yadav’s North Zone side put themselves in pole position to register a mammoth win against the inexperienced North East Zone side. After taking 7 wickets and bowling North East Zone out for 134, North Zone added 259 runs in just 55.1 overs to set Rongsen Jonathan’s side a target of 666. First innings centurions Dhruv Shorey (11) and Nishant Sindhu (3) both missed out but Prabhsimran Singh and Ankit Kumar struck fifties to put the NEZ bowlers to the sword.
The North Zone bowlers then picked three wickets in 18 overs to reduce North East Zone to 58/3.
