Ayush Badoni’s double hundred dots North Zone’s Duleep Trophy semifinal entry

Badoni (204 off 223 balls) and Kanhaiya Wadhawan (23) remained not out. Badoni made most of North’s decision to bat on, making his second first-class double century in some style.

Overnight 56, Badoni played a near flawless innings to bring his hundred in 123 balls with a single, and there was just a simple wave of the bat to celebrate the feat.

Even though he moved to 99 with a six off Manishi.

At the other end, skipper Ankit Kumar (198), who started the first session from 168, had a wonderful chance to notch up a double ton, but an attempt to pull pacer Mukhtar Hussain ended in the hands of Suraj Jaiswal at mid-on.

By then, Ankit and Badoni had moved their association to 150 for the third wicket.

East Zone’s hopes for some respite was misplaced as Badoni in the company of Nishant Sindhu (68, 91b, 2×4, 5×6) realised 157 runs to take North past the 600-run mark and the overall lead too crossed 700.

The lone point of interest in an otherwise dreary day was Badoni reaching his double hundred, which he duly did in 222 balls.

The landmark arrived through a boundary as in the final hour he made 54 runs off 55 balls.

Auqib Nabi of North Zone, who took five wickets including a hat-trick in East Zone’s first innings, was adjudged man of the match.

So, why did North Zone decided to bat on despite having a chance to press for an outright victory? “If we wanted, we could have gone for the result because we had upper hand. But we didn’t try because we were in the lead in the first innings. We did very good batting in the first innings and then bowling,” said North Zone captain Ankit.

“We also wanted to keep Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana as much fresh as possible (ahead of the upcoming Asia Cup.) But we made some wrong decisions that we couldn’t click in the batting in the first innings. Otherwise, we could have taken even more upper hand in the first innings.” Shami, Mukesh off the field.

NE Zone thwart Central’s victory bid as match ends in draw

North East Zone batted bravely to deny Central Zone an outright win but could not stop them from marching into the Duleep Trophy semifinals by the virtue of a decisive first-innings lead here Sunday. North East Zone, chasing a mammoth 679-run target on the final day put on board 200 for six as the match ended in a tame draw .

Central Zone posted 532/4 and took a first-innings lead of 347 runs by dismissing the opponents for a paltry 185. In their second effort, Central zone posted 331/7 declared to set NE Zone an improbable victory target.

NE Zone players batted with caution all day in their second innings with wicketkeeper-batter Jehu Anderson (64 off 96 balls) and skipper Rongsen Jonathan (60 off 97 balls) scoring fighting half centuries to frustrate the rival bowlers.

Central came into the final day confident and quickly sent the NE Zone batters reeling by reducing them to 40 for 2 in only the 15th over.

Young left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey (2/53) struck off the last ball of the 14th over to get rid of opener Karnajit Yumnam for 17 runs.

The cricketer from Manipur endured a tough opening spell of pace bowling along with senior partner Techi Doria (15 off 47 balls) to stitch a 40-run partnership.

However, NE Zone lost both their openers one after the other with Doria walking back to the dressing room in the very first ball of the 15th over bowled by pacer Adiyta Thakare (2/21).

At 40/2 things looked gloomy for NE Zone. It soon became 66/3 after Thakare struck again to send Ashish Thapa (13) packing.

NE Zone took the setback in their stride and started building their innings with young Anderson and domestic stalwart Jonathan, who has represented Karnataka, Nagaland and Railways, playing within their means to cobble together a 110-run stand.

It was a defining partnership in the game which frustrated the Central Zone bowlers as the pair put their heads together to guide their team to a draw despite the odds heavily stacked against them.

Anderson struck 11 boundaries and a six, while Jonathan, the 38-year-old hit nine fours.

The duo perished one after the other in the space of 10 runs leaving NE Zone precariously placed at 186/6.

However, Pheiroijam Jotin (9 not out off 23 balls) and Ankur Malik (5 not out off 14 balls) joined hands to thwart Central’s victory charge by playing out the remaining overs with caution.