Bengaluru : East Zone and Central Zone fought neck to neck in Semi Final 1 , Day 2 of Duleep Trophy 2026 at CoE, Bengaluru. 15 years old prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhimanyu Easwaran struck half century and challenged defending champion Central Zone.
Central Zone scored 266 in first innings on Day 1. East Zone openers Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (92) and Bengal captain Abhimanyu Easwaran (69) smashed 161 runs opening stand. Sooryavanshi scored blistering 92(81) with 7 sixes and as many boundaries. Easwaran took a calm approach scoring 69 (106) with 8 boundaries.
However, after the pair’s dismissal, things took a turn. The middle order completely began to collapse. Even seniors like Sudip Gharami (25), Ishan Kishan (16) couldn’t add much runs as East Zone could manage 266 , collapsing from 161-0.
From Central Zone, Harsh Dubey picked 4 wickets, while, Aryan Pandey and Yash Thakur grabbed 3 wickets each.
Coming to bowl for 2nd innings, Mukesh Kumar quickly dismissed Kumar Chandela and captain Rajat Patidar cheaply, while, Mohammed Shami dismissed Aryan Juyal. Aman Mokhade (23*) added few runs at the end as Central Zone finished Day 2 with 45-3.
