The second semi-final of the Duleep Trophy 2025 has started in Bengaluru and West Zone surprised everyone with explosive batting on the first day.
After winning the toss, West Zone chose to bat first and scored 363 runs in 87 overs, that too by losing only 6 wickets. The run rate was 4.17, which shows how much dominance the batsmen created.
The day started a bit badly. Yashasvi Jaiswal was LBW off Khaleel Ahmed in 0.3 overs after scoring just 4 runs.
After this, Harvik Desai was also out in 3.1 overs off Deepak Chahar after scoring 1 run.
The score was 10/2, and it seemed that Central Zone would now dominate. But then came Arya Desai and Ruturaj Gaikwad, who took charge of the innings.
Arya scored 39 runs, but was bowled by Harsh Dubey in 26.2 overs.
Duleep Trophy 2025, WZ vs CZ: Who was the star of the day?
Gaikwad played a brilliant innings of 184 runs in 206 balls, which included 25 fours and 1 six. His strike rate was 89.32, and he spread such brilliance on the pitch that the bowlers of Central Zone were blown away.
However, Saransh Jain got him stumped out in the 74.1 over, but by then he had left his mark.
Shreyas Iyer also played a quick innings of 25 runs, but Khalil Ahmed got him out in the 35.4 over. Shams Mulani scored 18 runs, but Jain also got him stumped in the 43.3 over. Then Tanush Kotian and captain Shardul Thakur took charge.
Kotian remained not out after scoring 65 runs, while Thakur added 24 runs. Together, the two took the score to 363/6.
Among the Central Zone bowlers, Saransh Jain and Khaleel Ahmed took 2 wickets each while Deepak Chahar and Harsh Dubey got 1 wicket each.
Yash Thakur and Shubham Sharma could not take wickets but did curb the runs to some extent.
West Zone will want to score more runs tomorrow on Day 2, especially with the pair of Kotian and Thakur. Will Central Zone be able to make a comeback? It will be very interesting to see.
