Stumps East Zone 708 (Kishan 270, Kushagra 101, Vijay 4-180) vs South Zone

Resuming on 111 not out, Kishan laid down the marker by taking the attack to Mohammed Siraj in the seventh over. The second new ball – taken two overs into the day’s play – hardly offered any assistance, and Siraj continued to largely bowl within himself in sapping heat. When the ball hardly beat the outside edge in the first hour, Siraj resorted to some chatter with the batters in a bid to distract them. Kishan, though, wasn’t in the mood to oblige.

Midway through the first session, South resorted to negative tactics with Vijay bowling outside leg stump. Kishan was a step ahead, using his feet to charge at the bowlers and manufacture room by stepping out and then lofting them through the line. He was also ferocious off the sweep, knowing fully well there weren’t too many demons in the surface.

Kishan kept cramping in the heat, but battled through until he couldn’t go on. Briefly towards the end of the second session, he went off to field soon after bringing up 250. He then returned at the fall of the seventh wicket to try and make a late dash towards a triple-century. It would’ve made him only the third batter in Duleep Trophy history after Raman Lamba and Gagan Khoda to get there.

However, an attempt to find the ropes led to him dragging a lofted hit down to R Smaran just 10 minutes prior to stumps. Kishan walked off to a standing ovation, having faced 334 deliveries in which he hit 30 fours and seven sixes. He was dismissed three short of his highest first-class score, but not before he’d set East on the road to reclaiming the Duleep Trophy thirteen years after they last won it.

Kishan was by then in his element. A ball after getting to 150, he stepped out to loft Shreyas Gopal, the legspinner, down the ground. At different times, Tilak Varma employed seven fielders on the leg side and asked his spinners to bowl outside leg. Kishan was a step ahead each time. He galloped from 175 to the 190s with three boundaries in the same over off Gopal – two steps out to hit the straight boundary, and then when he erred in length, a punch off the back foot to the extra cover fence.

Half an hour into the second session, Tilak brought on Devdutt Padikkal for some part-time offspin. It told you South were no more in it for the wickets, but just waiting for the inevitable declaration they hoped would come, but didn’t. This reduced much of the sting in the contest, and no one was in any kind of hurry, and overrates remained abysmal for much of the day.

Kishan brought up his 200 off 270 balls when he cover-drove Padikkal imperiously, and then galloped towards the 250-run mark by going aerial until lack of strength in his forearms due to cramps limited his strokeplay. Even as he went off, Mohammed Shami and Kaunain Quraishi frustrated South and kept them on the field for much of the final session, before Shami’s dismissal brought Kishan back in his push for the triple.

While he didn’t get to the landmark, his knock had all but batted South out of the contest. With three days remaining, South have no option but to simply bat first and bat big, and hope the surface doesn’t come to life late in the game, like it often has the propensity to.