Rayudu takes West to Deodhar title

West Zone 293 for 5 (Rayudu 78*, Patel 58, Jadhav 57, Juneja 56) beat North Zone 289 for 8 (Chand 88, Yuvraj 67) by five wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A collective batting effort, led by Ambati Rayudu's unbeaten 78, helped West Zone clinch the Deodhar Trophy with a five-wicket win over North Zone in Guwahati. This was West Zone's 11th Deodhar Trophy title.

Chasing a daunting 290, West Zone lost opener Vijay Zol in the seventh over. But then Manprit Juneja and the captain Parthiv Patel, both of whom scored half-centuries, added 87 runs at 6.21 runs per over to keep the chase on track. The stand was broken when Patel tried to flick legspinner Amit Mishra's wrong one towards midwicket, providing a simple catch.

Two more wickets had fallen after small intervals, and by the 30th over, they were placed at a tricky 175 for 4.

Rayudu and Kedhar Jadhav batted together till the 43rd over, sharing a quick 87-run stand that took West Zone to a comfortable 262 for 4. Rayudu and Nayar saw them home with 10 balls remaining.

North Zone's innings, after they were put in to bat, revolved around two knocks of 88 and 67 by Unmukt Chand and Yuvraj Singh, both of whom finished as the leading run-getters in the Deodhar Trophy, with 144 runs.

Yuvraj was the more aggressive of the two, scoring seven boundaries and three sixes in his 52-ball knock.

Chand fell for a 124-ball 88, which was smartly constructed. He played slowly initially, but after reaching a half-century off 87 deliveries, accelerated, hitting three sixes and two fours, to score 38 runs off the next 37 balls. He perished in the 40th over, mishitting a hoick towards midwicket.

Their third-wicket partnership of 120 built a solid platform for acceleration towards the end, which was done via a 13-ball 25 by Manpreet Gony and a 26-ball 32 by Parvez Rasool.