Rajat Patidar continues to showcase his batting prowess in domestic cricket, even if he hasn’t made a comeback to the Indian team. He’s now demonstrating his leadership skills, guiding his team effectively. After leading Madhya Pradesh to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final and then Royal Challengers Bangalore to their first IPL title, Patidar’s captaincy magic is evident in the Duleep Trophy as well. Under his captaincy, Central Zone has secured a place in the final of this tournament, where they will face South Zone.
The first tournament of the Indian domestic cricket season, the Duleep Trophy, saw both semi-final matches end in draws. Central Zone and North Zone had qualified for the semi-finals based on their first-innings lead in the quarter-final matches held in Bengaluru. In the semi-final, Central Zone faced West Zone, who had won the title in the previous season. However, Ajinkya Rahane, the captain of the team last season, was not part of the team this time. Shardul Thakur was leading the team in his place, while star players like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer were also in the team.
Despite this, Central Zone put the seemingly stronger West Zone under pressure with their strong batting and sharp bowling. After restricting West Zone to 438 runs in the first innings, Patidar’s Central Zone scored 600 runs in their first innings. No batsman from the team scored a century, but 6 batsmen scored half-centuries, with 5 of them scoring more than 75 runs. Captain Patidar himself scored 77 runs, while Shubham Sharma scored the highest with 96 runs.
It was this innings that sealed Central Zone’s place in the final as they took a lead of 162 runs in the first innings. In the second innings, West Zone’s batsmen couldn’t perform well, and they could only score 216 runs after losing 8 wickets by the time the match ended in a draw. The star of Central Zone’s success was off-spinner Saransh Jain, who took 3 wickets in the first innings and 5 in the second. He also scored an unbeaten 63 runs.
In the other semi-final, South Zone defeated North Zone to secure a place in the final. This match also ended in a draw on the final day, but South entered the final on the basis of a massive lead of 175 runs in the first innings. Opener Narayan Jagadeesan played the biggest role in taking South to the final, scoring 197 runs in the first innings. With his innings, South scored 536 runs in the first innings. Then, with the fast bowling of Gurjapneet Singh and Mohammed Nidhish, South bundled out North for 361 runs. In the second innings, South scored only 95 runs after losing 1 wicket when the match ended. Jagadeesan also scored a half-century this time.