Duleep Trophy: First-season wonders from South, Central Zones look to build on bright domestic start

Bengaluru, Sep 9 (PTI) A clutch of young prospects such as Ravichandran Smaran and Danish Malewar will be eager to enter the selectors’ thinking arc during the Duleep Trophy final between South Zone and Central Zone, starting here from Thursday.

The absence of some familiar stars, except Central skipper Rajat Patidar, owing to their India A duty against Australia A might have given the match a barren look.

But it is equally exciting to watch some next-Gen talents trying to push their cases to gain higher acclaim after making a blazing start to their respective domestic careers during the 2024-25 season.

None has been more impressive in that group than Smaran, whose seven first-class appearances for Karnataka have yielded 516 runs at an average of 64.50 with two hundreds.

His records in List A and T20s are impressive too — 433 runs from 10 matches at an average of 72.16 in 50-over matches and holding a strike-rate of 170 in six T20s.

Those numbers underline his all-format prowess, and the 22-year-old left-hander would certainly want to build on it in front of national selectors at the BCCI Centre of Excellence grounds.

On the other hand, Central’s Malewar has already made an impression in the Duleep Trophy, scripting 203 and 76 in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively.

In fact, the 21-year-old Vidarbha batter has so far made 1077 runs from a mere 11 first-class matches averaging 59 with three hundreds.

Giving them company is 19-year-old Andre Siddarth from Tamil Nadu, who began his first-class career with a 612-run season (2024-25) where he averaged 68.

All these first-season wonders will be keen to build on their early success in the upcoming domestic season and this match offers them a fine launching pad.

With a few important India A assignments lined-up in the near future, they will be keen to make a strong impression on selectors.

While batting departments of both the Zones are filled with hopefuls, their bowling units largely have domestic workhorses.

At 33, India pacer Deepak Chahar, who is representing Central Zone here, might not have too much time in his hand, and he will need to make this outing count with some wickets against his name.

In this Duleep Trophy, he has bowled 29 overs across two matches for as many wickets, and he would be eyeing an improvement there.

But in bowling, Central will miss spinner Harsh Dubey, pacers Khaleel Ahmed and Yash Thakur, as the troika has joined India A camp in Lucknow.

So does that give South, who themselves are without batters Devdutt Padikkal and Narayan Jagadeesan, a distinct advantage? South captain Mohammed Azharuddeen was pinning his hope on the ability of his batters to bat big in the final.

“We are playing with seven batters actually, so it's always an advantage because Bangalore wickets are always favouring the batters. So, we are keeping things very simple. If you are batting either first or second, we just want to put up a huge score.

“Jaggi and Padikkal will not be there for the next match. Really happy for them because they have been doing really well for the last two-three years. But we are getting a very good replacement as well,” said Azharuddeen.

In fact, if the CoE pitch retains its rather sluggish nature then, as Azharuddeen hinted, the title clash could be a run-drenched affair.

Teams (from) Central Zone: Rajat Patidar (c), Ayush Pandey, Danish Malewar, Shubham Sharma, Sanchit Desai, Yash Rathod, Nachiket Bhute, Kumar Kartikeya Singh, Aditya Thakare, Upendra Yadav (wk), Ajay Singh Kukna, Akshay Wadkar (wk), Deepak Chahar, Kuldeep Sen, Saransh Jain.

South Zone: Mohammed Azharuddeen (c and wk), Ricky Bhui (v-c), Ravichandran Smaran, Kale M, Sheikh Rasheed, Tanmay Agarwal, Salman Nizar, Andre Siddarth, Tanay Thyagarajan, Gurjapneet Singh, MD Nidheesh, Vasuki Koushik, Ankit Sharma, T Vijay, Basil NP.

Stand-bys: Mohit Redkar, Snehal Kautankar, Eden Apple Tom, Ajay Rohera, G Anikeeth Reddy.

Match starts at 930 am. PTI UNG TAP