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 The Duleep Trophy, 1974-75 saw the participation of all the regular five zonal teams. The teams were named as the East Zone, North Zone, South Zone, West Zone and Central Zone. They were selected by the BCCI to represent five different geographical locations of India.
The South Zone and North Zone teams started the proceedings in the tournament. The two teams played the match at Madras from 27-30 September, 1974 and the North Zone batted first in the match, after its captain, G Inder Dev won the toss. The North Zone batsmen could not play much well in their first innings and got all out for a score of 172 runs. Madan Lal got the highest individual score of 84 runs for North Zone in the first innings. While replying to the small first innings score of 172 runs of North Zone, the South Zone batsmen played better than their counterparts and scored 200 runs in their first innings. B Patel was the top scorer for South Zone with 81 runs. The poor performance of the North Zone batsmen continued in the second innings also, as they got all out for only 164 runs in the second innings. As they were trailing by 28 runs in the first innings, the target for South Zone to win the match was set at 137 runs. The South Zone batsmen played well to achieve the target comfortably after losing only 5 wickets and thus won the match with a margin of 5 wickets.
The first Semi-Final of Duleep Trophy, 1974-75 was played between the teams of West Zone and East Zone and the match was held at Pune from 04-07 October, 1974. The East Zone captain, D Singh decided to bat first in the match, after winning the toss and his decision was proved to be a completely wrong one. None of the East Zone batsmen could stand longer in front of some brilliant bowling by West Zone bowlers like P Salgaonkar and K Ghavri. The East Zone team got all out for a mere score of 83 runs in the first innings, as Salgaonkar and Ghavri took 6 and 4 wickets, respectively in East Zone's first innings. The West Zone batsmen played wonderfully in their first innings and scored 200 runs for 4 wickets, before their captain, A Mankad declared the innings. The East Zone team was trailing by 117 runs in the first innings and they failed to play well in the second innings also. They could score only 127 runs in their second innings, before getting all out. Though, the West Zone team needed only 11 runs in the second innings to win the match, it had no chance to do so. As the specified period of the match was over by the time East Zone's first innings ended, the West Zone won the match on the basis of its lead in the first innings.
The teams of Central Zone and West Zone appeared and played against each other in the second Semi-Final of Duleep Trophy, 1974-75 and the match took place at Nagpur from 11-14 October, 1974. After winning the toss, the captain of West Zone, A Mankad decided to bat first in the match and his decision was not proved to be a right one. The West Zone batsmen faced some serious trouble while playing in the first innings and got all out for a small score of 138 runs. H Kanitkar became the top scorer for West Zone with an individual score of 61 runs. K Gattani took 5 wickets for 51 runs on behalf of Central Zone in West Zone's first innings. Though, the West Zone batsmen failed to play well in the first innings, the bowlers did compensate their failure wonderfully and restricted Central Zone's first innings to only 110 runs. P Shivalkar caused most of the damage to the Central Zone first innings, as he took 6 wickets for only 39 runs. Boosted by getting a lead of 28 runs in the first innings, the West Zone batsmen played comparatively well in the second innings and scored 211 runs, before getting all out. Thus, West Zone set a target of 230 runs to win for Central Zone and the Central Zone team failed to achieve the target, due to poor batting performance. As P Shivalkar once again bowled brilliantly for West Zone to take 5 wickets for 50 runs, Central Zone's second innings ended on a score of 175 runs.
The Final of Duleep Trophy, 1974-75 saw the South Zone and West Zone teams playing at Hyderabad from 18-20 October, 1974. The South Zone skipper, S Venkataraghavan won the toss and decided to field first in the match. His decision was a perfect one, as the West Zone batsmen faced some serious troubles while batting in the first innings and got all out for only 102 runs. The two magical spinners for South Zone, E Prasanna and B Chandrasekhar took 5 and 4 wickets, respectively to demolish the West Zone batting line-up in the first innings. The South Zone batsmen showed a much better performance than their counterparts in the first innings and scored a good total of 231 runs, before getting all out. Trailing by 129 runs in the first innings, the West Zone batsmen played more sensibly in the second innings, though got all out for 147 runs. Thus, the South Zone team required only 19 runs in the second innings to win the match and they did so with ease, by losing only 1 wicket. The South Zone team won the Final match with a huge margin of 9 wickets and also became the proud winner of the Duleep Trophy, 1974-75.
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