By India Today Sports Desk: Shivam Dube and Mayank Agarwal starred in the Deodhar Trophy on Sunday, 30 July as South Zone and West Zone defeated East and North respectively. With the win South Zone continued their dominant run at the top of the group, while West Zone matched East Zone in points (12) from equal number of matches (4).
On Sunday, July 30th, South Zone continued their undefeated streak in the Deodhar Trophy with a convincing five-wicket victory over East Zone. The round-robin match was highlighted by impressive half-centuries from Mayank Agarwal and Sai Sudharsan.
Agarwal, who scored 84 runs, and Sudharsan, who contributed 53, formed a formidable second-wicket partnership that yielded 118 runs. Their performance, which included ten fours and two sixes, was instrumental in South Zone’s successful chase of 230 runs in just 44.2 overs.
Agarwal’s 88-ball innings was punctuated by six fours and a six, while Sudharsan hit four boundaries and a six in his 57-ball stint. Following their dismissal, N Jagadeesan (32) and Rohit Rayudu (24) maintained the momentum of the chase.
South Zone’s victory solidified their position at the top of the points table with four wins from as many matches. In contrast, East Zone, despite having three wins from four matches, remained in second place.
The triumph was a result of a collective effort from South Zone’s bowlers. The seam trio of V Koushik, Vidhwath Kaverappa, and Vijaykumar Vyshak shared six wickets, while spinners Sai Kishore and Washington Sundar took four wickets.
East Zone, who chose to bat first, got off to a promising start with Virat Singh and Subhranshu Senapati scoring 49 and 44 runs respectively. However, their innings collapsed after their dismissal, leading to regular loss of wickets. Akash Deep and Mukhtar Hussain then stepped up, adding 44 and 33 runs respectively to take East Zone to a respectable total.
WEST vs NORTH
West Zone’s match was much closer on the day. Chasing 260 runs, West Zone suffered a mini-collapse with their middle order getting wiped out for 122 runs. Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Shivam Dube and Kathan Patel combined to rescue the innings and added 138 runs between them to launch an aggressive attack on the North Zone bowlers.
Dube hit 5 sixes and 3 boundaries, while Patel scored 6 boundaries, playing the support role. Dube (83 off 78) was the star of the show as West chased down the target in 48.5 overs to remain in the hunt for the finals.
Earlier in the innings, North were guided by Nitish and Himanshu Rana’s half centuries to a decent total of 259 runs. Barring those two and Shubham Rohilla (56 off 52) nobody turned up in the batting order. Spinner Shams Mulani was the pick of the bowlers from West Zone, with 3 wickets to his name.
