Riyan Parag Leads East Zone Into Final of Deodhar Trophy 2023 With Another Century

Riyan Parag starred yet again for the East Zone in the Deodhar Trophy 2023 as he scored his second century in the tournament. Parag delivered the goods as he scored 102 off just 56 balls against the West Zone. With the ball, Tripura’s Manisankar Murasingh was the pick of the bowlers as he managed to pick up a five-wicket haul to help East Zone win.

The tournament which is held in Puducherry, proved to be interesting as East Zone won the toss and chose to bat first. East Zone openers, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Utkarsh Singh managed to provide a decent start but Easwaran’s wicket was taken by Arzan Nagwaswalla. Things were looking fine for East Zone until Utkarsh departed after scoring 50 runs as Rishav Das and skipper Saurabh Tiwary failed to create any impact.

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But Riyan Parag who has been in fine form in the tournament, took things into his own hands as he held his ground and started patiently. His first boundary came after 26 balls as he began playing off the back foot. But runs did not stop flowing as the East Zone’s keeper, Kumar Kushagra was busy scoring boundaries after which he got dismissed at 42 runs. Parag soon picked up the pace after taking his time as he finished his knock of 102 runs in 68 balls and remained unbeaten as his side posted a total of 319 runs to defend.

The West Zone’s batting failed to respond to the challenge as early dismissals led to their downfall. Opener Samarth Vyas who was asked to open the batting, departed early to Akash Deep whilst experienced players like Sarfaraz Khan, Rahul Tripathi and Shivam Dube all were dismissed for hardly any runs at all due to MuraSingh’s magical spell. The West Zone skipper, Priyank Panchal was forced to come down at number 11 due to the Gujarati batter injuring himself in the first innings which proved to be a disaster.

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After East Zone’s win against West Zone, they will play Mayank Agarwal’s South Zone in the final which will prove to be a tough task due to the number of recognized players in the South Zone side. Some of them include the skipper Mayank Agarwal, Sai Sudharshan and Washington Sundar to name a few. The finals will be held in Puducherry on August 3, 2023.