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 The Duleep Trophy, 1984-85 comprised of five zonal teams that had played in all the previous editions of the tournament. The organisers of the tournament, BCCI selected the teams from five different geographical locations of the country. The teams were named as the East Zone, West Zone, North Zone, South Zone and Central Zone and they were selected according to the zonal format of the Ranji Trophy.
The teams of Central Zone and East Zone were involved in the first match of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85 and the match was held at Bombay from 20-23 October, 1984. The East Zone team's captain, D Doshi decided to bat first in the match after winning the toss and he got support from his batsmen. The East Zone batsmen played well and scored a moderate total of 256 runs in their first innings. A Mitra became the top scorer for East Zone by scoring a superb century of 115 runs. On the other hand, R Hans took 5 wickets for 28 runs on behalf of Central Zone in East Zone's first innings. In reply to the moderate first innings total of East Zone, the Central Zone batsmen showed a good batting display and scored a wonderful total of 352 runs in their first innings. S Mudkavi played the lead role for Central Zone batting, as he scored a brilliant century of 184 runs to help his team get a good lead of 96 runs over East Zone in the first innings. The East Zone batsmen failed to apply themselves on the crease properly in the second innings, while batting with a deficit of 96 runs and they scored only 152 runs before getting all out. Thus, the East Zone team set a target of 57 runs to win for Central Zone, in the second innings. The Central Zone batsmen achieved the target quite easily and scored 57 runs, after losing only 1 wicket. Thus, the Central Zone team won the match with a huge margin of 9 wickets and also entered into the Semi-Finals of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85.
The Central Zone team was involved in the first Semi-Final of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85 also and this time, it played against the North Zone team at Pune from 27-30 October, 1984. The Central Zone captain, S Rao decided to bat first in the match after winning the toss, however, the decision was proved to be a completely wrong one. All the Central Zone batsmen failed miserably to play well and as a result, the first innings of Central Zone ended on a tiny score of 100 runs. M Prabhakar and R Ghai caused all the damages to the Central Zone batting line-up, as they took 5 wickets, each for North Zone. The North Zone batsmen were quite charged up by the extraordinary bowling performance by their bowlers and they scored a huge total of 407 runs in their first innings. While Y Sharma played a good knock of 100 runs to become the top scorer for his team, the opener, C Chauhan gave good support to him by scoring 98 runs. Playing with a huge deficit of 307 runs in the first innings, the Central Zone batsmen tried their best to have a good show in the second innings. However, they could score only 326 runs ion the second innings, before getting all out and thus set a target of only 20 runs to win for North Zone, in the second innings. The North Zone openers played sensibly and scored the required 20 runs for their team, without losing even a single wicket. Thus, the North Zone team won the match with a huge margin of 10 wickets and reached the Final of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85.
The second Semi-Final of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85 was played between the teams of West Zone and South Zone and the match took place at Bombay from 27-30 October, 1984. The toss of the match was won by the captain of West Zone, R Bhalekar and he took decision of batting first in the match. The West Zone batsmen batted moderately well and scored a moderate total of 228 runs in their first innings. The skipper, R Bhalekar scored the highest individual score of 75 runs for his team and S Keshwala provided good support to him by scoring 49 runs. The South Zone batsmen played extremely well in their first innings and put on a mammoth total of 593 runs on the scoreboard. The batsmen like R Khanwilkar, K Srikkanth and R Madhavan were the biggest contributors to South Zone's huge first innings total. While Khanwilkar and Srikkanth scored magnificent centuries of 156 runs and 101 runs, respectively, Madhavan scored 95 runs for South Zone. They helped South Zone in taking a huge lead of 365 runs over West Zone in the first innings. However, the West Zone batsmen never got demotivated in spite of trailing by such a huge margin in the first innings and they scored a good total of 491 runs for 6 wickets in their second innings. S Pandit and M Gunjal were the premium ruin getters for West Zone, with scores of 126 runs and 117 runs, respectively. However, as the stipulated duration of the match got over when West Zone was batting in the second innings, the match ended in a draw. The South Zone team won the match on the basis of its first innings lead and also entered into the Final of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85 to play against North Zone.
The North Zone and South Zone teams played against each other in the Final of Duleep Trophy, 1984-85 and the two teams played the match at Delhi from 09-11 February, 1985. The South Zone team batted first in the match, as the North Zone captain, K Azad invited them to bat, after winning the toss. While batting in their first innings, the South Zone batsmen played well and scored 212 runs, before getting all out. S Kirmani became the top scorer for his team with 82 runs to his name. The North Zone batsmen faced a lot of troubles while batting in their first innings and they failed to score more than 164 runs, before getting all out. None of the North Zone batsmen, except G Singh, who scored 68 runs, could play well in the first innings. The South Zone batsmen batted in their second innings with a handy lead of 48 runs over North Zone in the first innings. They played quite well and scored a good total of 236 runs in their second innings, before losing all the wickets. A Jha took 5 wickets for 76 runs on behalf of North Zone in South Zone's second innings. Thus, the North Zone team required 285 runs in the second innings to win the match. However, they failed to achieve the target and got all out for a score of 211 runs in their second innings. As a result, the South Zone team won the match by a good margin of 73 runs and also clinched the championship title in Duleep Trophy, 1984-85, after a long gap of 8 years.
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