The first semi-final of the Duleep Trophy 2025 is bringing a lot of excitement to Bengaluru, South Zone has been outplaying North Zone from day one. South Zone scored a mammoth total of 536 runs in 169.2 overs in their first innings.
Now it was North Zone’s turn, and at stumps on Day 3, they were 278/5 in 79 overs, still 258 runs behind. The run rate was 3.52, and South Zone had batted first after losing the toss. But their batsmen made a mockery of North’s bowling!
For South Zone, Narayan Jagadeesan played a brilliant innings of 197 runs, which included 16 fours and 2 sixes in 352 balls. Devdutt Padikkal scored 57, Ricky Bhui scored 54, and Tanay Thyagarajan scored 58. Tanmay Agarwal scored 43, Salman Nijar 29, and Gurjapneet Singh added 29 runs.
Captain Mohammad Azharuddin was dismissed early after scoring 11 runs. V Kaushik remained unbeaten on 11 and MD Nidhish on 2. 30 runs came in extras, which included 16 no-balls. North’s Nishant Sindhu took 5 wickets, Anshul Kamboj took 2, Mayank Dagar and Sahil Lotra took 1-1 wickets.
Duleep Trophy 2025 SZ vs NZ: Super Duper Twist
In the batting of North Zone, Shubham Khajuria played a brilliant innings of 128 runs and is still unbeaten. Nishant Sindhu scored 82 runs, Ayush Badoni scored 40, Yash Dhul scored 14, and captain Ankit Kumar scored 6 runs. Kanhaiya Wadhawan was run out without opening the account.
Sahil Lotra is unbeaten on 1 run. Among the South bowlers, Gurjapanit Singh took 3 wickets, MD Nidhish took 1 wicket, and V Kaushik, Tanay Tyagarajan, Ricky Bhui remained empty handed.
Talking about wickets, Ankit Kumar was out on 20, Yash Dhul on 38, Ayush Badoni on 101, Nishant Sindhu on 272, and Wadhawan on 272. North Zone is still waiting for Mayank Dagar, Aaqib Nabi, Yudhvir Singh Charak, and Anshul Kamboj to bat. South bowlers will now put pressure.
