In the zone: East look for title encore

Defending champions East Zone will seek to do an encore when they meet an upbeat Central Zone in Duleep Trophy final,which is a virtual replay of last edition played in Indore. While Central will like to take revenge after being humiliated by an innings and 20 runs in the last edition,the East Zone outfit led by Natraj Behra will like to prove the sceptics that their triumph last time was no fluke.

However,there has been a heavy downpour in the city for the past two days and things are unlikely to change overnight. Rain apart,the fate of the match depends on the duel between Central batsmen and East bowlers. Central have shown great depth in their batting while surpassing a commendable 451 from North Zone,including an unbelievable 10th-wicket partnership of 127 runs between Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rituraj Singh.

The pitch at the Chepauk stadium is known to get slower as time progresses and one would expect that the team that wins the toss to bat first.

Central’s batting will revolve again over Robin Bist,Ashok Menaria and Mohammed Kaif and will be tested by Ashok Dinda,who has troubled almost every domestic team for the past two seasons with his pace. Dinda,who grabbed 7/26,had South batsmen running for cover at Visakhapatnam.

With the bat,Saurabh Tiwary has been in good form for East,and will expect that Anustup Majumdar,who played a stellar role in East’s success last time to get runs this time too.