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New Delhi: Central Zone and South Zone locked horns in the Duleep Trophy final 2025 at the BCCI Centre of Excellence ground in Bengaluru on Thursday, September 11. Central's skipper Rajat Patidar invited South to bat first in the final.
Central spinners Saransh Jain and Kumar Kartikeya proved their skipper's decision right by picking up nine wickets together to dismantle the South batting unit, as they bundled out for just 149 runs in 63 overs. Jain picked up five wickets, and Kartikeya scalped four wickets.
The batting unit of South struggled early in the innings, as opener Mohit Kale played a careless sweep shot against Kartikey to lose his wicket for just six runs. His dismissal put pressure on the South Zone batters, and the spin twins did their job perfectly by picking up wickets at regular intervals
Central lost four wickets before lunch on Day 1 as they scored just 64 runs in 33 overs. Opener Tanmay Agarwal looked solid with the bat, but the mid-pitch collision between him and Ricky Bhui caused the run-out of the opener on 31 runs.
The South batters were playing shots with doubt-ridden minds, which induced them to throw their wickets to the spin twins. Kartikeya bowled a peach of a delivery to dismiss South's skipper Mohameed Azharudden, on just four runs. All the batters were batting with a tentative approach, which opened the gates for both spinners to trap them easily.
The lower-order tried to fight back, but they failed to deliver against Kartikeya and Saransh. Salman Nizar was the last hope for South to cross the 200-run mark, but the half-hearted shot shattered their hope to post a decent score on the first day of the final.
In response, Central began their innings strongly by finishing day 1 on 50 runs for no wickets and are trailing by just 99 runs. Both openers, Danish Malewar and Akshay Wadkar, remained unbeaten on 28 and 20 runs, respectively.
Malewal looked impressive as he smashed Gurjapneet Singh for two fours in a row in the seventh over. Both batters played carefully in the final overs of the day, where bowlers have an upper hand on the batters.
