Visakhapatnam, Feb 5: South Zone, playing their third consecutive Duleep Trophy final, won the title with a thumping seven-wicket win over North Zone.

Robin Uthappa’s onslaught in the second innings helped South Zone clinch the win with a day to spare at the Dr. YSR Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. They were beaten by West Zone in both previous finals.

Chasing 178 to win, openers Uthappa and Abhinav Mukund gave South Zone a solid start with a century partnership. Abhinav Mukund took a back-seat and ably supported Uthappa as he attacked the North Zone bowlers from the word go. Mukund played the anchor, remaining not out on 64 runs with eight fours and a six. Uthappa, at the other end, blasted 71 runs off 45 balls with eight fours and three sixes. By the time S Narwal got him out, the game was completely out of reach for North Zone.

Manish Pandey, who came in at No. 4, added 37 runs off just 24 balls while B Sumanth came in when South Zone required only 12 runs to win and helped Mukund add the finishing touches to the game.

Building on their overnight score of 50/1, North Zone were all out for 317 runs.

Nitin Saini, who was batting on 21 on Day 3, made 65 runs before he was out to Pragayan Ojha. Ojha also got the important wicket of previous innings centurion Paras Dogra (44 runs).

Mithun Manhas was the highest scorer for South Zone in the second innings with 79 runs to his credit.

North Zone’s top and middle-order were not able to convert their scores into something significant despite getting into the 40s and 50s. The failure of the tail-enders with the bat further added to their woes.

North Zone, whose strategy so far had been to take a first innings lead and play it safe, were unable to do so at Vizag. They trailed by 140 runs after winning the toss and electing to bat.

North Zone last won the trophy in the 2007-08 season when they beat West Zone.

Brief score: North Zone: 1st Innings 337 all out in 106.1 overs and 2nd Innings 317 all out in 88.5 overs ( M Manhas 79, N Saini 65, A Mithun 3/42, S Aravaind 3/ 76, PP Ojha 3/94) lost to South Zone: 1st Innings 477 all out in 132.2 over and 2nd Innings 178/3 in 23.4 overs (R Uthappa 71, A Mukund 64*, Y Singh 2/40) by 7 wickets

North Zone Playing XI: N Saini, S Dhawan, Mandeep, M Manhas, P Dogra, I Sharma, S Narwal, Yashpal Singh, A Mishra ( c ), Joginder Sharma, U Kaul (wk).

South Zone Playing XI: A Mukund, RV Uthappa, MK Pandey, S Badrinath ( c ), Amit Verma, B Sumanth, CM Gautam(wk), R Vinay Kumar, A Mithun, PP Ojha, S Aravind.