It's North Zone vs South Zone for Deodhar Trophy

The last round game between North Zone and South Zone on January 31 will decide the champions of this year's Deodhar Trophy tournament. This became clear after the penultimate round of matches in the competition on Friday. While East Zone defeated West Zone by four wickets at the Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad, South Zone snatched a thrilling two wicket victory over Central Zone at the Brabourne stadium in Mumbai.

East Zone finished their fixtures with two wins and two defeats in their four games. West Zone and Central Zone, who meet in the other final round game on January 31, have got a record of one win and two losses in three matches. Both the teams then are out of the reckoning. So it all boils down to a straight title clash between South Zone and North Zone, who each have a record of two wins and one defeat from their three games.

West Zone would have been in the reckoning had they beaten East Zone on Friday. But East Zone, with a fine all round performance, got the better of West Zone with ten balls to spare. Put in to bat, West Zone started badly losing the wickets of ND Modi (2) and Iqbal Siddiqui (17) with only 42 runs on the board. But then they made a grand recovery thanks to a third wicket partnership of 162 runs off 31.4 overs between Sitanshu Kotak and Vinod Kambli. The two in form left handers made runs confidently against a six man East Zone attack. Kambli seemed headed for his third successive century in the competition but on 82 he was bowled by Laxmi Ratan Shukla. The 28-year-old left hander faced 91 balls and hit eight fours and a six.

At 204 for two in the 42nd over, West Zone had the perfect springboard to take off for a really imposing total. But after the fall of Kambli, the batsmen who followed did not exactly rise to the occasion. Shukla, in the midst of an inspired spell, got rid of Kotak as well in his next over. The Saurashtra left hander made exactly 100. He faced 143 balls and hit eight fours. Amol Muzumdar, Zakir Khan and Nayan Mongia all fell quickly in an attempt to push the scoring rate along. But Abhijit Kale made some fine strokes in hitting an unbeaten 28 off 21 balls with a six and a four. West Zone were still able to post a challenging total of 262 for seven in 50 overs. Shukla finished as the most successful bowler with three for 46 off ten overs while skipper and veteran left arm spinner Utpal Chatterjee played a major role in curbing West Zone in the slog overs in picking up two for 44, also from ten overs.

When East Zone began their reply, they were rocked by Iqbal Siddiqui who dismissed SS Das and Rohan Gavaskar with successive deliveries in his first over. Tottering at 11 for two, East Zone staged a recovery with Nikhil Haldipur (67) and RR Parida (32) adding 71 runs for the third wicket off 11.3 overs. Parida was then bowled by Garsondia after facing 38 balls and hitting five fours. The recovery process was maintained with Haldipur and Saba Karim increasing the score by 63 runs during a fourth wicket association that lasted 11.5 overs. Haldipur was then caught by Siddiqui off Nilesh Kulkarni. He faced 62 balls and hit seven fours. Karim and SS Raul (24) then added 69 runs off 13.5 overs during a vital fifth wicket partnership before the latter was run out. The successive stands had put East Zone in a position from where they could force a victory and Karim and Rajiv Kumar took their side closer to the target by adding 36 runs for the sixth wicket off 7.1 overs. Finally, with victory only 13 runs away, Karim was bowled by Kotak for 98 in the 46th over. The wicketkeeper faced 110 balls and hit eight fours and two sixes while playing a crucial knock. Rajiv Kumar (17) and P Jaichandra (6) then added the finishing touches and East Zone were home when the former hit Kambli for a brace.