Rathod's career-best 194, Jain's all-round show take Central to Duleep Trophy title

Yash Rathod's career-best 194, Saransh Jain's 69 with the bat in the first innings and a match haul of 8 for 179 with the ball, and Rajat Patidar's quick 101 headlined Central Zone's first Duleep Trophy win in close to 11 years. Chasing just 65 on the final morning, Central lost four wickets, but Akshay Wadkar and Rathod held their composure to give their side a six-wicket win over South Zone at BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.

There was plenty of grip and bounce for left-arm spinner Ankit Sharma on the fifth morning, while fast bowler Gurjapneet Singh also found enough movement to keep South interested. They both picked up two wickets, but the 65-run target was never going to be daunting.

Danish Malewar got off the mark with a clip through midwicket for two but fell soon after edging Ankit behind. It was a gently tossed up delivery from Ankit that pitched and turned sharply away from Malewar, who was drawn into a tentative drive.

Shubham Sharma got away two streaky fours off Gurjapneet. He first edged the fast bowler to the right of wicketkeeper Mohammed Azharuddeen, who was wrong-footed, and then got a thickish outside edge that flew past gully. However, Shubham's luck ran out the very next ball when he went after a fuller-length outswinger from Gurjapneet, but could only get an outside edge to Azharuddeen.

Jain, promoted to No. 4, flashed Gurjapneet over point first up but fell the next ball, getting a thick inside edge on to his pad with short leg taking a simple catch as Central slipped to 24 for 3.

Patidar played and missed a number of times early, but Central kept taking the aggressive route, even as Wadkar pumped Ankit through midwicket off the back foot, and then square drove Gurjapneet.

Patidar survived a stumping chance, and once the early morning moisture dried out, he played a few more shots, notably two lovely on-the-up drives to the left of mid-off against Ankit. But he fell with Central 16 runs away, toe-ending a sweep off Ankit straight up, with the fielder at mid-on doing the rest.

Wadkar, eamwhile, got the target down to single figures before Rathod fittingly hit the winning runs, punching V Koushik through covers to end the game in 20.3 overs. It was Central's seventh Duleep Trophy title (including one shared), and their first since the 2014-15 season, where also they beat South.