South Zone booked themselves a spot in the Duleep Trophy final with a thumping innings and 38-run win over Central Zone at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

After declaring their first innings on their overnight score 467 for nine, the South Zone bowlers bowled their team to victory in 57.2 overs. Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha ran through the Central Zone line-up to finish with a six-wicket haul in the second innings. Malolan Rangarajan got the ball rolling with the wicket of opener Mukul Dagar with the CZ score on 34, while Ojha removed Jalaj Saxena for a duck, triggering a middle-order collapse.

Although Vineet Saxena rallied on with a valiant 128-ball 67 and Chawla resisted with a 56-ball 73-run knock, their efforts were not enough in face of South Zone’s mammoth first-innings score that already had assured the Abhinav Mukund-led side a place in the final – on the basis of their first-innings lead.

While Ojha finished with impressive figures of 20.2-5-48-6, Baba Aparajith claimed two for 35 and Rangarajan picked one wicket. Central Zone’s innings was ended for 220 with Imtiaz Ahmed not-out on 28 and Mohammad Kaif absent hurt.

Brief scores:

At the end of Day 4:South Zone 1st innings 467/9 decl in 162 overs; Central Zone 2nd innings220 all-out in 57.2 overs (P Chawla 73, V Saxena 67, PP Ojha 6/48, B Aparajith 2/35)

At the end of Day 3:South Zone 1st innings 467/9 in 161 overs (A Mukund 111, B Aparajith 109, M Pandey 81, CM Gautam 69)

At the end of Day 2: Central Zone 1st innings 209 all-out in 85.4 (P Chawla 56, P Ojha 3/49, B Aparajith 2/13); South Zone 1st innings 137/2 in 63 overs (A Mukund 61*, B Aparajith 35*)

At the end of Day 1: Central Zone 1st innings123/5 in 50.2 overs (M Dagar 45, A Mithun 3/24)