The Duleep Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket competition played in India. It was earlier played between five Indian zonal teams – North Zone, South Zone, East Zone, West Zone and Central Zone on a knock-out basis. This year Northeast Zone team was introduced by the BCCI as the sixth team.
With the introduction
of the Northeast Zone as the team that comprises players from Arunachal
Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland & Sikkim. They played their
first-ever Duleep Trophy match with the West Zone (The best team) from 8th
September to 12th September 2022 in Chennai. The game was drawn, due to the
first innings led by the mighty West Zone helping them qualify to the semi-finals.
Two players Ashish Thapa and Ankur Malik from Sikkim were part of the Northeast Zone first-eleven team coached by Dr Atul Gaikwad (the Director of coaching of Sikkim Cricket Association). On the other hand, West Zone had a strong side led by Ajinkya Rahane (India), Prithvi Shaw (India), Jaidev Unadkat (India), Rahul Tripathi (India), Yashasvi Bhupendra Jaiswal (India B, India U23, IPL), Het Patel (India U19), Shamas Mulani (IPL), Chirag Jani (IPL), & Atit Sheth (India U19).
In the first innings, West Zone made 590 runs in 123 overs with the loss of 2 wickets. Prithvi Shaw made 112 runs, Yashasvi Bhupendra Jaiswal 228 and Ajinkya Rahane 207 (not-out) and Rahul Tripathi 25 (not-out). It was Sikkim’s Ankur Malik who broke the opening partnership and gave NE Zone their first wicket. NE Zone made 235 runs in 81.5 overs of which more than half the score on the scoreboard was made by both the Sikkim lads. Ashish Thapa made 43 runs and Ankur Malik 81 runs and was the highest scorer for the team. At the end of day 5, West Zone made 268 runs with the loss of 5 wickets in the second innings and the match was drawn. Both the players from Sikkim showcased good games with bat and ball by making runs for the team and taking the crucial wicket of Prithvi Shaw.
The Captain of the West Zone Ajinkya Rahane was impressed by the way NE Zone played against such a strong side and appreciated the way Ashish and Ankur took the team to a handsome total from the point where the team lost early wickets and were 20 for 4.
“It was a proud moment for me to watch our two Sikkim players bat extremely well against India’s highly rated players of West Zone. It would have been icing on the cake if Ashish Thapa had scored a half-century and Ankur Malik a century, looking at the way they batted it was achievable. However, I congratulate them both for scoring more than half the runs from the total of 235 runs for the team.” – says Lobzang G. Tenzing (President SICA & Zonal Convenor - NE Zone).
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