Hyderabad, Oct 17: Central Zone confirmed their place in the final of the Airtel Duleep Trophy 2012 after they gained a crucial first innings lead against North Zone; the title clash will take place in Chennai next week. Central Zone, who started the day needing 10 more runs to go past North Zone’s 1st innings score of 451, surpassed that important number in the fifth over of the final day, before Bhuvneshwar Kumar became the last man to get out for an impressively compiled 128.

North Zone, who needed to pick up just one wicket at the start of the day, started poorly on Day 4 when Ishant Sharma kept banging in the ball short despite having the No.11 Rituraj Singh at the crease. Confident after his performance with the bat on Day 3, Rituraj countered everything that was thrown at him; it was his cut off Parvinder Awana that leveled the scores, after which Bhuvneshwar Kumar scored a brace to put his team ahead. For the record, the last wicket pair of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rituraj Singh added 127 runs in 31 overs.

Central Zone – who came back from a dire position – would eventually finish at 469, 18 ahead of North Zone’s tally. Rituraj Singh, who batted 148 minutes, would remain unbeaten on 39, while Bhuvneshwar’s 253-ball innings took 312 minutes.

One needs to make a special mention of Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s innings; the Uttar Pradesh lad showed he has a mature head on his shoulders, and did not show any signs of panic even when batting with the tail. He played copybook shots – some of which were pleasing on the eye – and even showed he had the power to clear the boundary on three occasions. Mention also needs to be made of his ‘team-first’ attitude; when on 99, he had four opportunities to take a single and get to the three-figure mark. But he declined – putting his team’s interests ahead, farming the strike and choosing to take a single only off the fourth ball of the over to get to his maiden ton.

Amit Mishra was the pick of the North Zone bowlers; the leg-spinner, who struggled with discipline where No Balls were concerned, finished with figures of four for 162. It was surprising that the North Zone skipper did not employ his best bowler at the start of the day. Rishi Dhawan (3-66) and Parvinder Awana (2-95) were the other wicket-takers. Ishant Sharma and Rahul Sharma, of whom a lot was expected, were disappointing and would finish wicketless.

In their second outing, North Zone would score 187 runs in 52 overs, before declaring their innings closed. Rahul Dewan was unlucky to miss out on a century after he played an ugly hoick, only to have his furniture rearranged; he made 80. Nitin Saini (38) and Rishi Dhawan (3) would remain unbeaten when his captain called time on the innings at the tea interval. Jalaj Saxena impressed while bowling his off-breaks; the Madhya Pradesh off-spinner threw the ball up, imparted a lot of revolutions and showed a lot of control to pick the wickets of Mandeep Singh and Paras Dogra. Murali Kartik, who dismissed Shikhar Dhawan for his below-50 score this season, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were the other wicket-takers.

Set 170 runs to win the match outright, Central Zone would lose the wicket of Vineet Saxena before Tanmay Srivastava and Robin Bist would see them through to the end of the match. The match was called off prior to the start of the last hour of the day with the Central Zone score reading 39 for 1.

Brief Scores:

North Zone 1st Innings: 451 in 119.2 overs (Yuvraj Singh 208, Shikhar Dhawan 121, Praveen Kumar 4-92, Murali Kartik 4-120)

Central Zone 1st Innings: 469 in 154.1 overs (Bhuvneshwar Kumar 128, Mahesh Rawat 71, Mohammad Kaif 63, Amit Mishra 4-162)

North Zone 2nd Innings: 187-4 declared in 52.0 overs (Rahul Dewan 80, Jalaj Saxena 2-52)

Central Zone 2nd Innings: 39-1 in 13.0 overs