North reach finals with five-wicket win

North Zone 239 for 5 (Dhawan 71) beat Central Zone 238 for 8 (Parvinder 102, Birla 64) by five wickets
Scorecard

North Zone set up an encounter with West Zone in the Deodhar Trophy final, after they beat Central Zone comfortably in their semi-final at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Chasing 239, North paced their innings well. Shikhar Dhawan played the anchor role, scoring a measured 71 at the top; Mithun Manhas upped the tempo a bit with his 40 off 39; and then Paras Dogra and Nitin Saini played brisk cameos to take North over the line with two overs to spare.

Central had chosen to bat, but lost a couple of early wickets before Parvinder Singh came in and started to construct an innings. Parvinder, who had scored a half-century in the quarter-final, got to 102, but a constant fall of wickets at the other end meant Central could never really lift their scoring. Udit Birla joined Parvinder at the wicket with Central in trouble at 102 for 5, but he managed to get 64 and put together 126 for the sixth wicket with Parvinder.

Amit Mishra was the most successful bowler for North, taking 3 for 43, and Sumit Narwal was economical, bowling 10 overs for just 40 runs.