South thrash East to reach Duleep Trophy final

South Zone thumped East Zone by an innings and 118 runs in the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy cricket at the Chaudhary Bansi Lal Stadium here Friday.

Right-arm medium pacers H.S. Sharath and Stuart Binny ripped through the rival line-up to reduce the East to 62 runs in only 23.4 overs. In the first innings, East folded up with a score of 84 to incur a deficit of 180 runs.

Starting the day at 30/4 with all the wickets snapped by Binny, Sharath left the East team reeling at 18/4 by taking the wicket of Indian international Manoj Tiwary (4). The 28-year-old Bengal batsman lost his wicket by offering a catch to Lokesh Rahul.

Laxmi Shukla joined Saurabh Tiwary to ward off the imminent threat but he perished, giving a catch to Baba Aparajith at a personal score of 18, which is also the highest score for his side through out the match, to leave his team at 43/5.

Things worsened for East after Saurabh was ran out following a confusion with Natraj Behera, by the combination of Binny-Pragyan Ojha while Varun Aaron also lost his wicket after Binny found him short of the crease while taking a single.

Sharath then scalped the wickets of Basant Mohanty and Ashoke Dinda to wrap up the East innings as wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha didn't come out to bat after injuring his thumb.

Brief Scores: South Zone 264. East Zone 84 & 62 (Laxmi Shukla 18; Sharath 4/27, Binny 3/23). South Zone won by an innings and 118 runs.