Indore, Feb 14: The 2011-12 Duleep Trophy ended with East Zone winning their first ever title. The victory came in style as East crushed Central Zone by an innings and 20 runs in two and a half days at the Holkar Cricket Stadium. Wriddhiman Saha, who set the foundation for East’s win with a knock of 170, was named Man-of-the-Match.

The chief architects of East’s victory were pace duo Shami Ahmed and Ashoke Dinda who ran through the Central line-up twice, dismissing them for 133 and 217 in the first and second innings respectively. Shami picked four wickets in each innings, ending with match figures of eight for 123. Dinda scalped four and three wickets respectively, ending with overall figures of seven for 123.

In a match dominated by the bowlers, Wriddhiman Saha stood out with the bat with a splendid knock of 170, to ensure East batted only once. The value of Saha’s innings goes up several notches considering the next highest individual score in the match from either side was 52, scored by his teammate Anustup Majumdar.

After conceding a first-innings lead of 237 to East on Day 2, the Central Zone openers got off to a cautious start, putting on a stand of 79 runs. However, the resistance didn’t last as long as required; Shami and Dinda teamed up to get rid of both, Jalaj Saxena (46) and Naman Ojha (36), on the morning of Day 3. Mohnish Mishra’s dogged innings of 44 wasn’t enough to avoid the crushing defeat for Central Zone.

After Ahmed and Dinda had wiped off the top and middle order, left-arm-spinner Shahbaz Nadeem cleaned up Central’s tail with the final two wickets. Rajasthan’s star batsman in the Ranji Trophy, Vineet Saxena, didn’t bat due to fitness concerns, giving Central only nine wickets to play with.

This was East’s seventh crack at the Duleep Trophy final; they had finished as runners-up on the first six occasions.

Scorecard