South Zone emerged champions of the Duleep Trophy, beating West Zone by 75 runs on the concluding day of the final at the Chinnaswamy in Bangalore.

West were bowled out for 222, resuming at 182/5 on Sunday.

Much of the credit for South’s victory would go to their bowlers who led from the front, particularly Vidwath Kaverappa. The 24-year-old Karnataka right-arm quick, who made his first-class debut in the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy, finished the competition with 15 wickets from four innings which also earned him the Man-of-the-Match and the Man-of-the-series awards.

With a fifer each in the semi-final and the final, Kaverappa was undoubtedly the pick of the South bowlers even though the likes of Vasuki Koushik, Vijaykumar Vyshak (both pacers) and R Sai Kishore (left-arm orthodox) made their share of contributions as well.

What impressed the national selectors most about Kaverappa was his ability to exploit the bowler-friendly conditions in Bangalore. “He has got this ability to move the ball both ways and does seem a good prospect overall. So there’s a fair chance for him to be picked up when India ‘A’ play next,” an insider in the BCCI said.

Among the batsmen, hardly anyone could strike it big in this edition of the Duleep Trophy with both the semi-finals being low-scoring clashes as well. South opener Mayank Agarwal scored back-to-back fifties in the semi-final against North Zone, but couldn’t convert his starts in the final.

Dropped from the Indian Test side, Cheteshwar Pujara began with a 133 in the semi-final against Central Zone, but aggregated only 52 in the next three innings. Sarfaraz Khan appears to be a bigger disappointment.

Amid all the hue and cry over his Test snub, the Mumbai batsman managed only 54 runs in four innings with 48 (on the penultimate day of the final) being his highest. That 48 too came after South missed a run-out opportunity when he was yet to be off the mark and dropped a catch later.

Agreed, it’s humanly not possible for a batter to score big in every innings and to be fair to Sarfaraz, he was in even better form in the previous two domestic seasons, which then selection committee led by Chetan Sharma had ignored. But these Duleep games were certainly an opportunity for Sarfaraz to serve another reminder, this time to the Ajit Agarkar-led panel.

“A big knock or an innings of impact in these matches count a lot. But he (Sarfaraz) simply wasted what was a golden opportunity to make a statement,” the Board insider added.

What also hasn’t gone down too well with the selectors is Suryakumar Yadav’s continuous struggle in formats longer than the T20. In this Duleep, barring one half-century (52), Surya couldn’t even reach double figures in the rest of his three innings, scoring only 7, 8 and 4. For sure, Surya wouldn’t want to be labelled a T20 specialist going forward.

Brief scores: South Zone 213 & 230. West Zone 146 & 222 (V. Koushik 4/36, RS Kishore 4/57). South Zone won by 75 runs.