Duleep Trophy 2026 Final, Day 1: East Zone skipper Ishan Kishan flexed his muscles on Day 1 of the high-stakes Duleep Trophy 2026 final at the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai against South Zone to put their side in complete command.
The skipper stayed unbeaten on 111 as he took East Zone to an imposing total of 385 with still six wickets left in the shed.
Duleep Trophy 2026 Final, Day 1: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhimanyu Easwaran set the correct tone for Ishan Kishan’s masterclass
East Zone’s opening pair of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhimanyu Easwaran got into their work quickly after Kishan won an important toss and opted to bat first. Sooryavanshi was particularly ruthless against Mohammed Siraj, smashing him for two boundaries and a six before falling for 44 off 37 deliveries, laced with five boundaries and a six. The wicket fell precisely when East Zone had reached 100 only in 14.4 overs. Easwaran went on to make his own quick-fire 86-ball 72, entailing ten boundaries alongside a maximum. The right-handed batter looked well on course for a triple-figure score as a run-out in the 25th over of the innings prevented that.
While Sudip Kumar Gharami was the only one perishing for a single-figure score among their top four, Shikhar Mohan proved to be yet another player missing out on a triple-figure score. Mohan got to 85 and became Chama Milind’s second victim of the innings after Sooryavanshi, falling 15 runs short of the magical triple-figure mark. South Zone failed to get any more success in the remainder of the day as Kishan and Kumar Kushagra batted to take their side to 385/4 in 79 overs in the day.
In front of a dense crowd in Chennai, the keeper-batter reached his 10th first-class hundred off 122 deliveries with a boundary off Shreyas Gopal’s bowling. Kushagra also played exceptionally well for his unbeaten 63 as the duo have put on an unbroken stand of 144 runs while batting at over five runs per over.
Duleep Trophy 2026 Final, Day 1: How many runs will the East Zone be targeting?
East Zone might likely be targeting a total of excess of 450, given the South Zone have the likes of Narayanan Jagadeesan, Tilak Varma, Devdutt Padikkal, Shaikh Rasheed and Ravichandran Smaran.
If Kishan has a chance of getting a double ton, he will want to achieve that.