Central Zone set up a title clash against North Zone in the Duleep Trophy cricket tournament though they failed to deliver the knock-out punch to Bangladesh Board President's XI on the final day of a league match in Delhi on Friday.

Central will take on North, who crushed South Zone at Indore, in the final, to be held in Nagpur from March 8.

Chasing a target of 436 runs, the Bangladesh Board XI were 199 for the loss of six wickets in their second innings when the two captains agreed for a draw after rain interrupted the match a couple of overs into the last session at the Karnail Singh stadium.

Bangladesh Board XI ended their campaign in the tournament without a single point from their two matches.

In their first match, the team suffered an innings defeat against East Zone.

Earlier, Sanjay Bangar narrowly missed a century. He was out after adding just five runs to his overnight score of 91. Soon the Central second innings also folded up at 230 as they lost the last four wickets with the addition of just 18 more runs.

A former India player, Bangar's superb knock lasted 341 minutes and 288 balls during which he hit 12 boundaries.

For the visitors, medium pacer Aftab Ahmed added to more tail-enders to his five-wicket haul on Thursday to return impressive figures of 7 for 39 in 24 overs.

The Bangladesh XI then began a near-impossible chase on a disastrous note, when Harvinder Singh removed opener Al Sahariar for a duck.

But Aftab Ahmed (26) together with the other opener Nafis Iqbal (45) prevented further disaster and the two added 62 runs for the second wicket.

The partnership was broken when Bangar struck forcing a snick from Aftab that was smartly held by wicketkeeper Naman Ojha.

Central again pressed for a win after the dismissal of Aftab, reducing the Board XI to 108 for four but Alok Kapali and Manjural Islam Rana provided stiff resistance while taking the total close to 200 by the tea break.

For Central, J P Yadav returned with best figures, picking the wickets of Nafis Iqbal and skipper

Mohammad Ashraful.

Scorecard

Central Zone (1st innings): 351

Bangladesh XI (1st innings): 146

Central Zone (2nd innings):
A Pagnis c Talha Jubair b Anwar Hussain 15
S Bangar c Kapali b Aftab Ahmed 96
D Bundela c Saghir Hussain b Aftab Ahmed 53
S Abbas Ali c and b Aftab Ahmed 0
J P Yadav c Saghir Hussain b Aftab Ahmed 0
N Ojha c Nazmul Hussain b Aftab Ahmed 0
N Doru c Saghir Hussain b Aftab Ahmed 29
M Kartik c (sub) Shabbir Khan b Abdur Razzak 10
Harvinder Singh c Saggir Hossain b Aftab Ahmed 5
K Parida not out 2
S Srivastava lbw Abdur Razzak 0

Extras: (b-7, lb-6, w-6, nb-1) 20

Total: (all out, 90.5 overs) 230

Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-97, 3-103, 4-103, 5-103, 6-189, 7-222, 8-224, 9-229.

Bowling: Anwar Hussain 13-6-33-1, Talha Jubair 3-0-14-0, Manjural Islam Rana 14-1-34-0, Abdur Razzak 31.5-6-72-2, Aftab Ahmed 24-12-39-7, Alok Kapali 3-0-13-0, Mohammad Ashraful 2-0-12-0.

Bangladesh Cricket Board XI (2nd innings):
N Iqbal lbw Yadav 45
A Sahariar c Abbas Ali b Harvinder Singh 0
A Ahmed c Ojha b Bangar 26
M Ashraful b Yadav 21
A Kapali lbw Kartik 45
M Islam Rana run out 49
S Hossain not out 0
A Razzak not out 0

Extras: (b 5, lb 3, w 1, nb 4) 13

Total: (6 wickets, 54 overs) 199

Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-69, 3-83, 4-108, 5-198, 6-199.

Bowling: Harvinder Singh 10-2-49-1, Srivastava 7-0-50-0, J P Yadav 16-4-39-2, Bangar 9-2-36-1, Kartik 8-5-9-1 Parida 4-1-8-0.