Dharamsala: West Zone thrashed North Zone by 113 runs in the final the Deodhar Trophy. The team from West on the back of some superb performances by their captain Parthiv Patel and Ajinkya Rahane set up a humongous target for North and defended it superbly with the help of a terrific Munaf Patel spell.
Earlier in the day, North won the toss and elected to bowl first. West Zone in the initial overs of the match showed that the decision will backfire on North as both Patel (78) and Rahane (118) started their innings on an attacking note. They put on an opening stand of 131 runs in 19 overs and ensured that West will score more than 300 runs in their innings. After the fall of Parthiv’s wicket Pujara came in to bat and ensured that the run-rate never drops for the team from west.
Rahane and Pujara put on 116 runs for the second wicket and took the score close to 250 runs; meanwhile Rahane completed a fabulous century. It was the late flair from Kedar Jadhav (67 of 43 balls) which took their score past 350.
North Zone when came out to bat would have hoped for a good start but that was never going to happen as they lost their four wickets for only 25 runs. For West, it was Munaf Patel who delivered the early blows as he took three of the four wickets that fell. For North it was Bipul Sharma who had a respectable total against his name, he scored 68 runs before getting out to Iqbal Abdulla who ended up with four wickets against his name.
North Zone did get some runs from their late middle-order as both Harbhajan and Gony played a quick-fire innings but that was never going to be enough to overcome the total set by the West Zone.
In the end it was some superb batting and some decisive bowling from the West Zone that sealed the trophy for them.
Brief Score:
West Zone: 355/4 (Parthiv 78, Rahane 118, Sangwan 2-63)
North Zone: 252/10 in 42.2 overs (Bipul Sharma 68, Patel 4-34)
