Duleep Trophy final: Dominant East Zone solidify grip on title 

Half-centuries from skipper Ishan Kishan and Shikhar Mohan solidified East Zone's grip on the Duleep Trophy as they finished Day 4 with a humongous lead of 584 runs. Kishan, who finished with a match tally of 350 runs, missed his century by 20 runs after Tilak Varma missed his by a solitary run earlier in the morning session.

East Zone did put up a fight on the fourth morning by adding 94 runs for their remaining four wickets. CV Milind showed a lot of resistance that aided the overnight unbeaten half-centurion Tilak Varma to continue in the same vein. Tilak kickstarted the day with a couple of boundaries off Mohammed Shami in the very first over even though South Zone had just taken the new ball. At the other end, Milind got going with a neat cover drive against Mukesh Kumar. The boundaries just kept flowing against the brand new cherry with Milind in particular looking in great touch.

That forced a change at both ends, bringing the spinners into operation. Their persistence finally paid off as East Zone managed to break the partnership with the wicket of Milind.That gave the bowling side an opening as Tripurana Vijay got run out when Tilak attempted to keep the strike. And then, his decision to take a single off just the second ball of an over backfired big time as Mohammad Siraj was now exposed to Mukesh Kumar, who duly got rid of him leg-before-wicket. In frustrating fashion, Tilak ended up missing a well-deserved century after he mistimed one back to the bowler in the following over to fall for 99.

On expected lines, East Zone did not enforce the follow-on despite fetching a 372-run first innings lead. There were no certainly no complaints from the small crowd that had gathered as this presented them an opportunity to watch Vaibhav Sooryavanshi bat again. Unfortunately, some of them left the stadium just five overs into the innings as Tripurana Vijay saw Sooryavanshi step out and dragged his length back as the opener got stumped for just 8. Just three balls prior to that, Abhimanyu Easwaran had edged one from Siraj to first slip. Even though East Zone weren't in no real danger despite these early blows, Kishan and Shikhar Mohan opted to first steady the ship.

With the lead now well past 400, Kishan hammered Vijay for a six and Mohan followed it up with a boundary straight down the ground of Shreyas Gopal. Both batters continued to bat in a positive fashion given the state of the game and post the Tea break, Kishan just switched gears further to entertain the fans who had stayed back after Sooryavanshi's dismissal. After bringing up his fifty, he took on Vijay in the following over and went 4,6,6,4. Clearly, another century was there for the taking.

However, Gopal and MD Nidheesh dried up the runs over the next few overs, which resulted in Kishan miscuing a shot while trying to break free. Even though he missed out on the ton, it was an innings that helped East Zone's lead surge past the 500-run mark which pretty much confirmed their title win. Post Kishan's departure, Mohan was trapped lbw by Shaikh Rasheed and Sudip Gharami fell early following a run out. Kumar Kushagra and Md Kounain Quraishi then batted out the remaining overs of the day, registering a half-century partnership in the process.

Brief scores: East Zone 708 & 212/5 (Ishan Kishan 80, Shikhar Mohan 52) lead South Zone 336 (Tilak Varma 99; Mukesh Kumar 3-62) by 584 runs