Tilak Varma was not out twice, and South Zone play East Zone in Chennai on Sunday

Tilak Varma faced 79 balls on the final morning at the BCCI Centre of Excellence Ground 2 in Bengaluru and did not get out. He had not got out in the first innings either. Two innings, 167 runs, no dismissals, and South Zone are in the Duleep Trophy final.

They chased 181 in 43.1 overs to beat North Zone by seven wickets. It was over comfortably in the end, which was not how the fourth day looked when it started.

Nidheesh took the last three wickets

North Zone resumed on the final morning seven wickets down, 139 ahead, needing to bat long enough to make a target that South could not walk down. They lasted a session’s worth of nerves and no more. MD Nidheesh took the last three wickets to finish with 5 for 56, his tenth five-wicket haul in first-class cricket, and North were all out for 297.

Sanat Sangwan’s 76 and Ayush Doseja’s 52 had done the work earlier in that innings. The tail did not add what North needed. Kavuri Saiteja and Shreyas Gopal took two wickets each, Vidwath Kaverappa one.

That left 181, on a pitch that had already produced a first-innings collapse and a 175-run stand, and nobody was quite sure which version of it would turn up.

South Zone were 102 for 3 and then nothing happened

Ricky Bhui made 42 and Narayan Jagadeesan 43 in an opening stand of 64 that took the sting out of the new ball. Jagadeesan was stumped. Two more went, South were 102 for 3, and a target that had looked routine had 79 runs left in it with the spinners on.

Varma and Ravichandran Smaran then put on 80 without being separated. Varma finished on 51 not out, Smaran on 32 not out. There was no drama in it at all, which was the point. Varma was named Player of the Match for 116 not out and 51 not out.

The first-innings hundred was the innings that decided the semi-final. South Zone were in trouble at the time, and Varma batted through it with Shreyas Gopal, who made 87, the two of them adding 175 for the sixth wicket to turn 195 against them into 312 for them. A lead of 117 in a knockout where a draw goes to the side in front is worth more than the runs suggest.

South Zone play East Zone in Chennai from Sunday

The final starts on 6 September at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. East Zone got there on Tuesday, beating defending champions Central Zone by four wickets after chasing 159 on a turning pitch. Mukesh Kumar took seven in the match, three in the first innings and 4 for 44 in the second, and was named Player of the Match. Mohammed Shami bowled alongside him. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who is 15, made 40 off 43 in the chase.

These two have not met in a Duleep Trophy final since 1970-71.

There is a selection subplot running underneath all of this. India named their T20I squad for the Afghanistan series on 1 September, and Varma is in it as vice-captain. So is Sooryavanshi. So is Ishan Kishan, who captains East Zone. Three of the players in Chennai on Sunday will be in Delhi seven days later for a series that starts on 13 September, and one zonal final is the last competitive cricket any of them play before it.

Follow the Duleep Trophy final and the rest of our cricket coverage