Finale on the knife-edge

West need 116 retain title, South five wickets to wrest it on the final day.

An innocuous content developer from Karnataka with an even more inconspicuous bowling form made Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara and Suryakumar Yadav look like they didn’t belong on the same ground as him.

Vasuki Koushik is a former Amazon employee who doesn’t seem like much of a seamer with his simple frame. Still, on Saturday, he made the ball do the most brilliant of things even at his measly pace to give South Zone marginal control of their Duleep Trophy final against West Zone at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.

With the 30-year-old darting the ball in and out at speeds hovering around 120 kmph, he picked up three crucial wickets at a miserly economy of 1.65 runs per over for 17 overs to help South restrict West to 182 for 5 at stumps on the fourth day.

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The visitors, who are in pursuit of 298 after South were bowled out for 230 in the wake of left-arm spinner Dharmendrasinh Jadeja’s fifer, trail by 116 runs with skipper Priyank Panchal unbeaten on 92.

With plenty of overs left in the game - should rain and bad light not come as a hindrance as it was so on Saturday - South will fancy themselves to claim their 15th title, but West aren't too far away within reach.

That said, South’s Karnataka pace trio of Koushik, Vidwath Kaverappa and Vyshak Vijaykumar will get their hands on the second new ball at some point on the final day so West aren’t out of the woods yet. In fact, they are staring at stiff odds should they go about the chase the way they did on Saturday.

Kaverappa and Koushik, and eventually Vyshak, staying in the channel for the entirety of the first session, West didn’t have room to breathe. Resultantly, Shaw, looking to manufacture a shot, ended up chopping Koushik on to the stumps.

Panchal was living on the edge at the time and was offered a reprieve when Hanuma Vihari dropped him at second slip off Koushik. The pacer was understandably despondent but didn’t let that come in the way of his consistency.

Soon enough, he was rewarded with the scalp of Pujara, who ended up bat-padding an incoming delivery to Tilak Varma at short leg. Three balls later, Suryakumar’s attempt at expansive on-drive was met with an identical delivery thudding into his pads for an easy leg-before-wicket decision.

With the pace trio at the helm, West had no way of breathing. That would explain why a new-to-crease Sarfaraz attempted a nonexistent single and was nearly run out. Had it not been for Sachin Baby’s poor underarm throw from point, Sarfaraz wouldn’t have raised West’s hopes to this degree in the wake of his 76-ball 48.

But his dismissal to R Sai Kishore in the dying minutes of the match, meant South could finish on top, but only just since Panchal is still there, and West aren’t the ones to give in.