![]() 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 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. |