Duleep Trophy: West Zone start favourites as big guns eye turnaround

Alur, Bengaluru: Redemption will be the central theme when a clutch of cricketers from the West Zone, including Cheteshwar Pujara and Prithvi Shaw, enter the field for the Duleep Trophy semifinals against Central Zone, starting here from Wednesday.

For the crucial clash, the West Zone bring in Pujara, Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav and Sarfaraz Khan and all four batters need a career reboot. Pujara, a veteran of 103 Tests and over 7000 runs, has scripted tales of valour over the years.

But now he finds himself out of reckoning for India. Shaw and Sarfaraz also fall under that redemption line, but there is a subtle subtext to it. Reasons more than cricket have contributed to them remaining outside the India tent.

Sarfaraz is a sailor in the same boat. He has envious numbers too in the domestic circuit. He remains one of those few batsmen to have scored over 900 runs in two successive seasons (2020-21, 2021-22).

The 25-year-old’s average in First-Class cricket is a shade over 79, second only to Sir Don Bradman. Even in the previous domestic season, he amassed runs at an average of 92.66. His non-selection in the India squad for the Windies trip was a prime-time debate subject.

But the word is that his off-field behaviour and subpar fitness level had closed the door on him, at least for now.

Teams Central Zone: Shivam Mavi (c), Upendra Yadav (wk), Vivek Singh, Himanshu Mantri, Kunal Chandela, Shubham Sharma, Amandeep Khare, Rinku Singh, Akshay Wadkar, Dhruv Jurel, Saurabh Kumar, Manav Sathar, Saransh Jain, Avesh Khan, Yash Thakur. West Zone: Priyank Panchal (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sruyakumar Yadav, Cheteshwar Pujara, Harvik Desai (wk), Prithvi Shaw, Het Patel (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Arpit Vasavada, Atit Seth, Shams Mulani, Yuvraj Dodiya, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Chetan Sakariya, Chintan Gaja, Arzan Nagwaswalla. (PTI)