India Blue lift Duleep Trophy in style

DINDIGUL : India Blue thrashed defending champions India Red by an innings and 187 runs in the final on Friday to win the Duleep Trophy here on Friday.

Spinners Deepak Hooda (5 for 56) and Saurabh Kumar (5 for 51) needed just 10.5 overs on the fourth day to bundle out India Red for 172 in the second innings.

Overnight batsmen Ishan Kishan and Writtick Chatterjee fell in the space of 10 runs to left-arm spinners Saurabh and Hooda respectively.

The talented Kishan could only add five runs to his score of 25, while Chatterjee moved from 13 to 15 before being caught by Ricky Bhui off Hooda.

Off-spinner Hooda picked up the wickets of M Prasidh (7) and Ishan Porel (6) to finish things off for India Blue.

Earlier, Saurabh had Mihir

Hirwani (5) caught behind by Smit Patel.

Left-arm spinner Swapnil Singh, who took 5 for 58 in India Red’s first innings, bowled only three overs and went wicketless in the second.

Swapnil had a good match as he scored 69 in India Blue’s only innings apart from the fivewicket haul.

Himachal Pradesh batsman Nikhil Gangta was named Manof-the-Match for his superb knock of 130.

The Duleep Trophy kicked off a long domestic cricket season announced by the BCCI earlier this year. Next on the calendar is the Vijay Hazare Trophy for the national one-day championship that will begin on September 19 and end on October 20. The venues are in Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

It will be followed by the Deodhar Trophy and then the Ranji Trophy.