Central Zone lifted the Duleep Trophy after a gap of more than a decade, beating South Zone by six wickets in Bengaluru. The margin sounds comfortable; the road was anything but. On a dry surface that kept getting trickier, Madhya Pradesh pair Kumar Kartikeya and Saransh Jain shared 16 wickets, forcing the game their side’s way inside four days.
“They have played a lot of matches together, Kartikeya and Saransh [for Madhya Pradesh] and they have the skill and are very difficult to play on this pitch,” captain Rajat Patidar said, the silverware still doing the rounds in the dressing-room. “The track was really good to bat and our bowlers dominated and made it tough for the other team. That was a positive sign.”
Key facts first
• Central Zone 1st Duleep Trophy title since 2014-15
• South Zone dismissed for 149 after choosing to bat
• Kartikeya 9 for 104 in the match; Jain 7 for 82
• Target of 65 chased with a few jitters on the final morning
Central’s route to the final had been smooth—first-innings leads over North East and West Zones were enough—but this was billed as a sterner examination. Patidar opted to bowl, sensing grip for the spinners even on day one. “This wicket was slightly dry, and that is why we decided to bowl first,” he explained. “We wanted to bowl them out in the first innings as early as possible. That was our aim and it made the game easier.”
The plan worked almost too well. South Zone slumped to 64 for 6, never truly recovered, and were shot out before tea. Though the ball seamed in the first hour, Patidar felt slow bowling was the real threat. “We predicted that it would help the fast bowlers, but I wanted to give one spinner at least an over to see how the pitch is responding. I realised there was more help for the spinners rather than the fast bowlers.”
Balaji rues missed runs
South coach L Balaji did not hide his disappointment. “The last day panned out to be bowler-friendly. Had we got more runs in the first innings or the second, had the partnership [between Ankit Sharma and C Andre Siddarth] been extended, it would have been a solid game,” he said. “[A target of] 150 would have been an ideal kind of fourth-innings target for the bowling unit to fight hard.”
Selection questions surfaced. South picked three seamers and just one specialist spinner—left-armer Ankit, who still managed six wickets. Balaji defended the call. “We played three seamers in the previous game and wanted to stick with pretty much the same combination,” he noted. “All the bowlers bowled their heart out. Had we won the toss, the third seamer would have come into play. But I felt the boys did well selection-wise. We were consistent when it comes to the combinations.”
That said, the coach admitted some strokes in the first dig “were a little bit unnecessary”. Those loose shots, on a surface that kept misbehaving, left South behind the game from the opening afternoon.
Jain takes the gong
Player of the Series went to Jain, whose tidy off-spin complemented Kartikeya’s left-arm variety throughout the competition. The 31-year-old credited his captain for trusting spin even when the new ball was available, a small tactical nudge that kept Central in front.
What next? Most of these players slip back into domestic duty next month, and the clutch moments here—how to read a wearing surface, when to attack, when to knuckle down—should travel with them. Balaji believes the experience of a pressure final will linger. “I felt the boys learnt a lot, and they’ll be better for it,” he said.
For Central, the trophy ends a 10-year wait and reinforces the depth that Madhya Pradesh cricket, in particular, is quietly building. They will not shout from the rooftops; Kartikeya’s gentle kiss on the silverware said enough.
