Duleep Trophy 2023 semi-finals, Day 4 round-up: West Zone to meet South Zone in final

West Zone reached the final of the Duleep Trophy 2023 after their semi-final against Central Zone at the KSCA Cricket Ground in Alur ended in a draw on Saturday, July 8. The final day's play was called off at tea due to wet outfield and West Zone progressed on the basis of first-innings lead.

West Zone resumed their second innings on 292/9 but were all out after adding just five more runs to their total. Yuvrajsinh Dodiya was out for 1, falling to Saransh Jain as Central Zone were set a target of 390.

Central Zone were off to a poor start in the chase as their openers fell with only 17 runs on the board. Himanshu Mantri (4) was the first to go, dismissed by Arzan Nagwaswalla, while Atit Sheth got the better of Vivek Singh (9).

Dhruv Jurel scored 25 before being stumped off Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, while Rinku Singh slammed 40 off 30 balls. Singh hit three fours and three sixes before he was dismissed by Dodiya. When the match was called off, Amandeep Khare was batting on 27 and Upendra Yadav on 18.

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South Zone register two-wicket win against North Zone in Duleep Trophy 2023 semi-final 2

In the second semi-final of Duleep Trophy 2023, south Zone defeated North Zone by two wickets at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Set to chase 215, South Zone resumed the day at 21/0. Vaibhav Arora kept the bowling side in the hunt, dismissing Sai Sudharsan for 17 and Ravikumar Samarth for 5. A third-wicket stand of 59 between Mayank Agarwal (54) and skipper Hanuma Vihari (43), however, put South Zone in command.

After the two experienced batters were dismissed, Ricky Bhui (34) and Tilak Varma (25) also chipped in with handy contributions. However, neither of them stayed to take South Zone over the line. The chasing side experienced some flutters as Washington Sundar (2) and KV Sasikanth (9) perished, leaving South Zone at 213/8.

North Zone slowed the game considerably toward the end, but could not stop South Zone from going past the target as Sai Kishore (15*) slammed two sixes, one of which brought up victory for his team.

South Zone will now face West Zone in the Duleep Trophy 2023 final at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium from July 12 to 16.