Led by Vidwath Kaverappa, the South Zone pacers reduced West Zone to 129 for 7 as they bounced back from a poor first innings with the bat in the Duleep Trophy Final in Bengaluru on Thursday, July 13. Heading into Day 3, West still trail South by 84 runs after bundling them for 213 in the first innings.
Prithvi Shaw and Harvik Desai took West to 97 for 1, with the young Indian opener looking especially dangerous. But South were helped by a 65-minute rain break that gave them a chance to take a step back and revisit their strategies.
After that, Vysakh Vijayakumar came from around the wicket and peppered both Shaw and Harvik with short-pitched balls. West batters looked to have caught unawares and their reply was jittery.
Shaw was forced to play precisely an upper cut by Vysakh. But the ball was too close to his body, and there was not enough room for its execution. The rather half-hearted shot neither had elevation nor the distance and it ended in the hands of Vidwath at third man. He scored 65 off 101 balls with 9 hits to the fence.
After this, Suryakumar Yadav entered the field of play with the mindset of playing T20 cricket and could have gotten out almost immediately if not for midfield by Sai Kishore, who failed to grab an uppish pull of him at mid-wicket. But his stay did end very soon as the Mumbaikar could not negate a Vidwath delivery that reared from just short of the good length.
Then, Vidwath trapped Sarfaraz Khan plumb in front for zero with a full delivery as the batter played all over it.
As soon as half of the batting unit was dismissed, it was left to Cheteshwar Pujara to hold the West innings together and get as close as to South's total. But the man who has scripted several escape stories failed to enact one this time. R Samarth held on to Pujara's flick off Vidwath as West's ship sank further.
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