COIMBATORE: When Duleep Trophy was introduced for the first time in the 1961-62 season, the final between West Zone and South Zone at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai was a low-scoring affair. West Zone, who share the most titles (18) with North, trumped South by 10 wickets in the four-day encounter.
60 years on, as the zonal format returns for the first time in over seven years, the two teams will be taking on each other for the twelfth time in a final. Coincidentally, West Zone hasn’t made it to the final since the last time these two sides met in 2009-10. South Zone, on the other hand, lost the 2014-15 final to Central Zone.
Through the course of this tournament, players from almost every zone have spoken about the zonal format and how there is a sense of identity attached to it which brings the team together. Although some of the West Zone players have experienced this format, among those who are playing in the tournament this season, only South Zone skipper Hanuma Vihari has featured in a final (2014-15) before.
“I feel the boys are really excited playing in the tournament because the South Zone is something we all take pride in and look forward to playing for,” said Vihari on Tuesday. Echoing the sentiment was West Zone captain Ajinkya Rahane: “West Zone is known to play as a unit and everyone contributed from game No. 1. We just want to be in the moment, take positives from the last two games and play this one.”
West Zone has added to their batting strength as Shreyas Iyer, Priyank Panchal and Sarfaraz Khan have joined the squad after completing the India A assignment. With only two days between the semifinal and the final, the main pacers — Jaydev Undakat and Atit Seth — did not bowl in the nets on the eve of the match.
In the South Zone nets, it was a familiar sight of what happened during the semifinal as Sai Kishore sent down a long spell to Mayank Agarwal and Devdutt Padikkal. Much like West Zone, there’s no dearth of stars in South as well with some proven customers like Mayank, Vihari, Manish Pandey, and Baba Indrajith in the batting department. After all, they scored over 900 runs in the semifinal.
Perhaps, the difference between the two teams lies in the bowling attack, which could well be the deciding factor in the contest. Unadkat and Seth have led the wickets tally for West Zone, whereas South have relied heavily on spinners. In the clash against North, they bowled just 11 overs of pace in 97.4 overs.
However, the conditions at the SNR College Cricket Ground are expected to be a lot different from Salem and it would be interesting to see how they adapt. If Erapalli Prasanna and Kripal Singh were the stars of South Zone in the first-ever Duleep Trophy final, 60 years on, a lot will ride on how Sai Kishore, K Gowtham, and Tanay Thyagarajan go about their business over the next five days.