Central Zone have actually advanced to the Duleep Trophy semi-finals on the basis of their first-innings lead over North-East Zone in their drawn quarter-final video game at the BCCI CoE Ground 2 on Sunday. Central Zone will now deal with West Zone in the semi-final at the CoE from September 4.
In the early morning, North East Zone started their pursuit of going after an unlikely 679 to win, after Central Zone stated their innings at 331/7 in 80.3 overs, with their lead standing at 678 runs. They handled to make 200/6 in 58 overs, before the video game ended in a draw, with Jehu Anderson and R Jonathan making 64 and 60 respectively.
North East Zone’s chase started with Karnajit Yumnam and Techi Doria seeing off difficult bowling from Deepak Chahar and Khaleel Ahmed to share a 40-run opening collaboration. The development for Central Zone was available in the 14th over when left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey had Yumnam (17) captured by skipper Rajat Patidar at cover.
On the extremely next ball, Central Zone struck once again as Aditya Thakare castled Doria for 15, before getting rid of Ashish Thapa for 13, as he nicked behind to replace keeper Upendra Yadav. Anderson and Jonathan put up a strong resistance by sharing a collaboration of 110 off 168 balls for the 4th wicket.
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Their exceptional fightback ended quickly as off-spinner Shubham Sharma eliminated Anderson for 64 before castling Hem Chetri. Dubey then got his 2nd wicket by eliminating Jonathan for 60, as North East Zone slipped from 176/3 to 186/6, losing 3 wickets for simply 10 runs.
Without any lead to sight, both groups accepted a draw at tea and play was aborted.