DULEEP TROPHY | Semifinals promise much as Central battles East and South spars with North

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The cream of Indian cricket’s second rung shall be in motion because the 2026-27 Duleep Trophy semifinal fixtures get underway on the BCCI Centre of Excellence from Sunday.

Defending champion Central Zone will tackle East whereas final season’s finalist South Zone will spar with North.

East and North notched up contrasting victories in the quarterfinals. The place East, marshalled by Ishan Kishan, recorded a thumping innings and 210-run win over North East, Kanhaiya Wadhawan’s North conjured a dramatic 52-run success regardless of West Zone coasting at 195 for 3 whereas chasing 287.

Teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi may solely rating eight runs for East however picked up two wickets together with his left-arm spin within the second essay. The last-four conflict will provide him one other alternative at bettering his middling First Class numbers (215 runs from 13 innings at common of 16.53).

Maintaining him silent shall be excessive on Central skipper Rajat Patidar’s priorities, and it stays to be seen if off-spinner Saransh Jain can help him on this. Saransh is a part of the roster however made his India debut in the second Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo, which stored him on the sector till Thursday.

However fellow India worldwide Gurnoor Brar — who didn’t play both Check in Sri Lanka — has been added to the North Zone squad and took part in Saturday morning’s practise. His entry additional bolsters North’s tempo assault, for it already has Anshul Kamboj and Arshdeep Singh.

North Zone’s Abid Mushtaq after successful the the Duleep Trophy 2026 Quarterfinal 2 in opposition to West Zone, performed on the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) grounds, in Bengaluru on August 26, 2026.
| Photograph Credit score:
Okay. MURALI KUMAR

Jammu & Kashmir left-arm spinner Abid Mushtaq starred in the win over West with a match-haul of 9 for 99. Whether or not he will get the identical buy at CoE Floor 2 as he did on the red-soil wicket at Floor 1 shall be intriguing to look at.

South has a stable batting line-up, led by skipper Tilak Varma, R. Smaran — 2025-26 Ranji Trophy’s main scorer with 950 runs — and Karun Nair. There may be additionally Shaik Rasheed, the extremely rated 21-year-old, who made 627 runs in Andhra’s sprint to the Ranji quarterfinals final season.