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North Zone 251 (Kamboj 60 Badoni 51, Deshpande 4-57, Kotian 4-72) and 222 (Badoni 50, Kotian 4-46, Mulani 4-78) beat West Zone 187 (Mulani 52, Mushtaq 5-39, Arshdeep 3-53) and 234 (Musheer 96, Gaikwad 66, Mushtaq 4-60) by 52 runs
On a red-soil deck where 25 wickets fell to spin, Jammu & Kashmir’s left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Abid Mushtaq walked away with the top honours as his combined haul of 9 for 99 spun North Zone to an impressive 52-run win over the Ruturaj Gaikwad-led West Zone in the Duleep Trophy quarter-final.
The final day dawned at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellences premises in Bengaluru with the game tantalisingly poised and all outcomes possible. West needed 67 runs. North needed three wickets. It took just 6.3 overs, with Mushtaq and Nishant Sindhu cleaning up the lower order.
Having orchestrated a turnaround late on the fourth day when West were cruising at 211 for 4 courtesy a century stand between Musheer Khan and Gaikwad, Mushtaq struck off the second ball of the final day by removing Tanush Kotian with one that skid low to beat the batters’ defence and crash into middle stump.
Tushar Deshpande, with a first-class best of 123, then blunted 17 deliveries before running at his 18th, in Mushtaq’s third over. But the drift from around the stumps caused Deshpande’s undoing, the hack resulting in an edge through to Abdul Samad in the slips.
Three balls later, it was all over when Urvil Patel was lbw for 25 attempting to hit out against Sindhu’s left-arm spin, a decision that could have been overturned had they kept a review intact.
Mushtaq and Sindhu aside, North were well served by Arshdeep Singh, who had four wickets in his first red-ball game in nearly a year. Three of those scalps came in the first innings, with Arshdeep troubling West’s top order with his late swing in both directions.
Anshul Kamboj, the other quick in the line-up, also had an impressive outing. He top-scored with 60 in the first innings to shore up North’s total, lifting them from a precarious 161 for 7 to 251. Then he dismissed the threatening Mumbai pair of Shams Mulani and Kotian in quick succession with the old ball to help North pocket a 64-run lead, which they built on courtesy Ayush Badoni’s second straight half-century in the match.
North next play the Tilak Varma-led South Zone in the first semi-final, while East Zone, who beat North East Zone in the other quarter-final, play the Rajat Patidar-led Central Zone, the defending champions, in the second semi-final. Both games will be played at the Centre of Excellence from August 30.
