India Red entered the final of the Duleep Trophy after the rain-affected game against India Blue ended in a draw with entire fourth day's play being washed out due to inclement weather and wet outfield. With only 78.2 overs of play possible through out the entire four days, both teams got a point each and Yuvraj Singh's 'Red' team with seven points from two games ensured that they are through for the summit clash.
Rahane (207 batting) and Jaiswal (228) toyed with the North East bowling line-up
Gurnoor Brar has impressed with his pace and control in his debut ODI series against Afghanistan.
Chesteshwar Pujara displayed his appetite for a big score with a superlative unbeaten 256 as India Blue piled up a mammoth 693 for six in their bid to outbat the Reds on the second day of the Duleep Trophy final.
Dinesh Karthik and Sheldon Jackson added 85 runs at a fair clip in only 16.2 overs before a sharp evening downpour rendered the outfield unplayable in the rain-hit Duleep Trophy cricket match between India 'Red' and India 'Blue' in Greater Noida on Wednesday. Jackson impressed with a strike-filled, unbeaten 48 off 55 balls, which contained eight hits to the fence.
Skipper Abhinav Mukund and Baba Aparajith smashed hundreds as South Zone took a firm grip of the Duleep trophy semi-final against Central Zone by reaching 479/9 on the third and penultimate day of the match in Chennai on Saturday.
India Green, resuming the day at 98 for two and chasing an improbable 474-run target, were dismissed for 303 in their second innings with Sharma taking six for 94 to take his match tally to 10 for 133, his best figures in first class cricket.
Avesh Khan hogged the limelight with his maiden first class half-century
At the end of third day's play, West Zone were 376 for 3, courtesy Jaiswal's unbeaten 209 off 244 balls
'It would have been understandable if, after a gruelling tour where five Test matches were crammed into a little over six weeks, he had opted to rest.''
Under scanner left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha today found a surprise visitor in legendary Bishan Singh Bedi, who dropped in at the Feroz Shah Kotla on the final day of the Duleep Trophy final to have an interactive session with him and three others.
Switching formats in a short span of time is never easy, concedes Kuldeep Yadav and the senior India spinner hopes that players coming off a gruelling IPL season have prepared well for this week's one-off Test against Afghanistan just as he did with extended red-ball practice.
Skipper Gautam Gambhir's 37th first-class century might have made his case stronger for an India comeback but his knock could not help North Zone overhaul Central Zone's imposing first innings score on Day 3 of the four-day Duleep Trophy semi-final in Mohali.
An incisive spell of seam bowling by Karnataka's Abhimanyu Mithun helped South Zone reduce Central Zone to 123 for five on a rain curtailed first day of the Duleep Trophy semi-final in Chennai.
Poor drainage facilities at Shahid Vijay Singh Patheek Stadium again came to the fore as a total of four hours and 45 minutes of play was wasted during the fourth day of the Duleep Trophy final that has already turned into drudgery.
Kerala will have a new captain in Mohammed Azharuddeen.
Is this a subtle hint at a change of guard at Rajasthan Royals?
Seniors Rohit Sharma,Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravichandran Ashwin received exemptions for the Duleep Trophy, starting in Bengaluru on September 5.
Indian cricketers, including Test skipper Shubman Gill and ODI captain Rohit Sharma, have cleared the pre-season fitness test which was conducted at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on Sunday.
SKY didn't realise that a non-performing captain starts losing respect of the dressing room. If someone fails to score consistently for more than a year, he would find it extremely difficult to actually instruct his teammates to execute his plans.
Under pressure to retain his place in the Test XI, Cheteshwar Pujara overshadowed Rohit Sharma by scoring a solid hundred as India Blue made full use of a placid track to amass 362/3 against India Red on the first day of the Duleep Trophy final in Greater Noida.
The West Zone squad was selected by the selection committee chaired by Mumbai's Sanjay Patil, Baroda's Prayan Dave, Maharashtra's Akshay Darekar, Sandip Maniyar from Saurashtra Cricket Association and Kirat Damani from the Gujarat Cricket Association.
Veteran opener Gautam Gambhir and young Mayank Agarwal helped themselves to half centuries before torrential rain played spoilsport in the Duleep Trophy match between India 'Blue' and India 'Red' in Greater Noida on Monday. Only 34.2 overs of play was possible which saw 'Blue' team skipper Gambhir (51 batting) and Agarwal (53 batting) put on 105 runs for the opening wicket. The two openers were solid without being flashy as they maintained a decent run-rate of just over 3 runs per over.
Spinner Ravindra Jadeja reaped rich dividends for reading the pitch well and grabbed 5 for 95 as India Blue looked all set to win the first-ever day/night Duleep Trophy, having secured a huge 337-run first-innings lead.
This year, Rajat led RCB to their maiden IPL title in 18 years and recently was crucial to the Central Zone's Duleep Trophy triumph for the first time since 2014-15.
South Zone took command of their Duleep Trophy semi-final after dismissing Central for a mere 209 and scoring 137 for 2 in reply on the second day of the match, in Chennai, on Friday.
A talented Central Zone team led by Piyush Chawla is aiming to come out firing all cylinders when it squares off with an equally combative South Zone side in the final of the Duleep Trophy, starting in New Delhi, on Wednesday.
South Zone took just 40 minutes into the third morning to crush East Zone by an innings and 118 runs en route their entry into Duleep Trophy final, in Lahli on Friday.
Ian Dev Singh posted a scintillating 145, while Rajat Paliwal and Nitin Saini also scored unbeaten centuries as North Zone amassed a mamoth 591 for eight declared in their first innings against East Zone on the third day of the Duleep Trophy in Kochi on Saturday.
Defending champions North Zone defeated East Zone by a huge margin of 433 runs to enter the final of the Duleep Trophy in Rajkot on Thursday.
Central Zone's batsmen, led by Robin Bist, were guilty of poor shot selection as they finished on 237 for 7 against South Zone on Day 1 of the Duleep Trophy final, in Delhi, on Wednesday. Bist blew away a chance to register a hundred, getting out for 79 off 153 balls. His three-and-a-half hours' stay at the wicket was studded with 12 sweetly-timed boundaries and a six.
East Zone bowlers led by the seasoned Laxmi Ratan Shukla rattled South Zone in the final hour reducing them to 236 for nine despite Robin Uthappa scoring a well-crafted hundred on the first day of the Duleep Trophy semi-final in Lahli on Wednesday.
Pacer Vijaykumar Vyshak who played under Shreyas Iyer's captaincy at Punjab Kings in the IPL, said that the skipper is understanding of young players and knows how to handle his team with maturity.
Pujara overcame ball sighting problems and hit a crisp 166 before state-mate Sheldon Jackson sent the India Green bowlers on a leather-hunt with Blue team piling up a mammoth 707 in a virtual 'semi-final' of the Duleep Trophy, in Greater Noida on Monday.
A tweaked format which will see the promotion and relegation of one team from the plate group instead of the current two sides from next season's Ranji Trophy.
Gaikwad constructed a handy partnership 90 for the second wicket with Aarya Desai as West gradually entered a stabilised phase.
Maharashtra batsman Ankit Bawne scored a gutsy century under pressure as West Zone took a vital 43-run first innings lead against East Zone on the second day of the Duleep Trophy quarter-final in Lahli.
South leads by a mere 64 runs, and Central should be able to surmount the target without much fuss on the fifth day on Monday.
Easwaran has been a domestic cricket stalwart for Bengal, with 107 first-class games, 8,070 runs at an average of 48.32 with the help of 27 centuries and 33 fifties.
Test skipper Shubman Gill was on Thursday named captain of the North Zone squad for the upcoming Duleep Trophy, beginning August 28, less than three weeks after he led a young Indian side to a thrilling 2-2 draw against England in a gruelling five-Test series.
