West Zone were 195 for 3 chasing 287, and lost four wickets for 25 before stumps
West Zone were cruising at 195 for 3 in pursuit of 287 in the Duleep Trophy quarter-final. By the close of day three they were 220 for 7, and North Zone were three wickets from a semi-final.
Aug 25, 2026
Ruturaj Gaikwad and Musheer Khan had taken West Zone to within 92 runs of a Duleep Trophy semi-final, with seven wickets standing and a day and a half still to play. By stumps their side had lost four wickets for 25 runs, and the quarter-final at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru had turned over completely.
West Zone closed day three on 220 for 7, chasing 287. They need 67 more on Wednesday with three wickets left. North Zone need three wickets and have a full day to find them.
The stand that nearly settled it
West Zone were 84 for 3 when Gaikwad walked in, Prithvi Shaw already gone for 6 off 30 balls and Harvik Desai for 2. The captain played the innings his first-innings 5 had given no hint of, reaching fifty off 46 balls and hitting seven fours in a 70-ball 66.
Musheer, at the other end, was doing the opposite of what he had done on day two. In the first innings he made 31 off 126 balls, blocking for survival against a probing spell from Abid Mushtaq. In the second innings he faced exactly the same number of balls and made 96, with eight fours and two sixes. The fourth-wicket stand was worth 111, and the hundred of it took 131 balls.
At 195 for 3 in the 45th over the chase looked closed. Then Gaikwad was run out by Kanhaiya Wadhawan, North Zone’s captain and wicketkeeper, and the innings stopped functioning.
Four wickets, 25 runs
Nishant Sindhu had Musheer caught behind four short of a hundred, at 211 for 5. Abid then took two wickets in four balls, trapping Shams Mulani lbw and bowling Mukesh Choudhary, both with the score on 220. Forty-four runs and four wickets came in the last ten overs of the day. Urvil Patel finished it unbeaten on 17.
The three batters left are Tanush Kotian, Shardul Thakur and Tushar Deshpande, which is a stronger last three than most sides carry. Thakur has two first-class hundreds, the first of them a Ranji Trophy semi-final century for Mumbai against Tamil Nadu. Kotian made 74 not out in that same innings, and has already taken eight wickets in this match. Sixty-seven runs is not a big ask for that group. Surviving is the harder part.
Abid Mushtaq’s match
Abid, the 29-year-old Jammu and Kashmir left-arm spinner, is the reason North Zone are still in this. His first-innings figures read 25.4 overs, 10 maidens, 39 runs, 5 wickets, and he bowled 25.4 of the 65.4 overs West Zone lasted. He bowled Shaw with a ball that drifted in and spun past the edge, went round the wicket to trap the left-handed Shivalik Sharma, and had Gaikwad and Urvil Patel lbw within three deliveries of each other to leave West Zone 70 for 5. Deshpande hit him for six late in the innings and was out two balls later.
He has 2 for 56 in the second innings and seven in the match. This is the same bowler who dropped a catch against Kerala in 2025 that cost Jammu and Kashmir a first Ranji Trophy semi-final by a single run, and who was in the side that won the state its maiden Ranji title earlier this year. Australia hired him as a net bowler during the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy because his accuracy resembled Ravindra Jadeja’s, which he cheerfully admits is the point.
How North Zone got here
They were bowled out for 251 on the opening day, rescued from 161 for 7 by Anshul Kamboj, who came in at No. 9 and hit 60 off 52 balls with five sixes. Kotian took 4 for 72 and Deshpande 4 for 57. A lead of 64 followed, then a second innings of 222 in 51 overs, built on Ayush Badoni’s 50 and Sindhu’s 44 and scored at better than four an over rather than stretched out. Mulani took 4 for 78 and Kotian 4 for 46.
That approach is what has given North Zone the position they are in. A slower 222 would have left West Zone chasing the same total with less time to lose wickets in.
What the winner gets
Whoever comes through plays South Zone in the second semi-final, on the neighbouring Centre of Excellence ground from Sunday. East Zone are already into the other one after beating North East Zone by an innings and 210 runs inside three days, and they meet Central Zone. The final is in Chennai from 6 September.
West Zone will not want to explain this one. Shaw, Gaikwad, Musheer, Thakur, Mulani, Kotian and Deshpande is a heavily capped quarter-final side, and it has been outbowled across three days by a North Zone attack whose best bowler is a spinner from a state that had never won a Ranji Trophy until this February.