Duleep Trophy: South defy it all to make final

The South Zone will take on the West Zone in the final of the tournament, starting Wednesday.

The slower North Zone went the faster the heartbeat rose among those at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Saturday, and it hit its peak when Sai Kishore smacked Jayant Yadav into stands as the sun faded.

That shot from the left-hander signalled the end to one of the most entertaining first-class contests at the venue in recent times for, with that one stroke, South had defeated North by two wickets and qualified for the Duleep Trophy final.

It was a victory which was celebrated in the stands by the few, who put up with the nagging rain and interruptions due to bad light, and by Hanuma Vihari’s men who braved it all to get to the summit tie.

In the end, even North skipper Jayant Yadav walked off with a smile on his face for he had literally done everything he could to delay - and that’s an understatement - what seemed inevitable not much earlier in the day.

Needing 32 runs to get from the final session after South had reached 183 for 4 in pursuit of 215 on the final day of the four-day game, victory for the ‘hosts’ seemed a fair conclusion to come to, but Jayant, a 12-year-veteran in first-class cricket, wasn’t about to roll over.

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He employed delaying tactics which some may consider crude or even against the spirit of the game, but he was willing to pay the price - literally - to pick up this win.

And so he moved fielders from one end of the ground to the other, chatted with his bowlers for longer than what was perceived necessary, called on the groundsmen for sawdust though the run-up seemed fine and also asked his bowlers to stop mid-way into their run-ups.

“Some will say that it’s against the spirit of the game, but even if I was the captain, I would have done the same thing,” said Vihari after the game. “I don’t think I would have differed even one bit. It’s right on their part, but if the light was bad they would have ended up on the winning side. Anything to win to a point. I think it was fair. If they were slow on over rate they would be penalised and lose money anyway. They were taking that risk to win.”

But at the time, the umpires were getting fidgety with their light metres and trained with their eyes on the sky. More importantly, it was testing South’s temperament. To which, they responded by spiralling to 201 for 7 with 14 runs needed.

Sai struck a six to calm the nerves a tad, but even with two runs to win, the game wasn’t done because Vyshak Vijaykumar was at the other end. The tailender did well to navigate three remaining deliveries from Baltej Singh’s 36th over, but it felt like it wasn’t done yet.

Then, Jayant made the error of bringing himself on. He had hoped Sai would err too by going for the big shot and mistiming one to one of the many fielders in the circle. The first ball of the 37th over was met with the clang of a game-winning six instead.

An instant classic ensured another, with South slated to take on West Zone from Wednesday at the same venue for the tournament's final.

Brief scores: At M Chinnaswamy stadium: North Zone: 198 all out and 211 all out lt to South Zone: 195 all out and (O/n: 21/0) 219/8 in 36.1 overs (Mayank Agarwal 54, Hanuma Bihari 43, Ricky Bhui 34, Tilak Varma 25; Harshit Rana 3-84, Baltej Singh 2-47, Vaibhav Arora 2-46). Result: South won by 2 wickets and entered the final. PoM: Mayank Agarwal.

At Alur: West Zone: 220 all out and (O/n: 292/9) 297 all out in 93.2 overs drew Central Zone: 128 all out and 128/4 in 35 overs (Dhruv Jurel 25, Amandeep Khare 27 n.o., Rinku Singh 40). Result: Match drawn, but West qualified for finals on innings lead.