Duleep Trophy Semis: Central Zone Strong Reply at 229/2 After West Zone’s 438

In the second semi-final of the Duleep Trophy being played at BCCI's Center of Excellence Ground B, Central Zone had strengthened its position against West Zone by the end of the second day's play. By the end of the day's play, Central Zone had scored 229 runs for the loss of 2 wickets. Ayush Pandey and Danish Malewar started the innings for Central Zone. Both shared a 67-run partnership for the first wicket.

Ayush was dismissed after scoring 40 runs. After this, Danish shared a 93-run partnership with Shubham Sharma for the second wicket and took the score to 160. Danish's wicket fell at this score. He was dismissed after scoring 76 runs off 136 balls. Shubham Sharma is present at the crease after scoring 60, and captain Rajat Patidar has scored 47 runs. So far, there has been a partnership of 69 runs between the two. The Central Zone is 209 runs behind the West Zone based on the first innings.

Earlier, West Zone's first innings ended at 438 runs. Playing ahead of the first day's score of 363 for 6 wickets, the West Zone lost its 4 wickets after adding 75 runs. Tanush Kotian, who returned unbeaten on 65 on the first day, was dismissed after scoring 76 runs after having added just 11 runs. At the same time, captain Shardul Thakur, who returned unbeaten on 24 runs, played an innings of 64 runs. Tushar Deshpande remained unbeaten after scoring 18 runs. On the first day, Ruturaj Gaikwad played an innings of 184 runs for the West Zone. It was only due to Gaikwad's innings that the team could reach 438. For the Central Zone, Saransh Jain and Harsh Dubey took 3-3 wickets. Khalil Ahmed took 2 wickets while Deepak Chahar took 1 wicket.

Due to Jagdishan's 197 runs and half-centuries from the other 3 batsmen, South Zone was all out for 536 runs by the end of the second day's play in the first semi-final. Nishant Sindhu took 5 wickets while Anshul Kamboj took 2 wickets.