West Zone whipped East Zone by eight wickets with more than a day and one session to spare in the Duleep Trophy semi-final at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday.
West, leading East by a handy 111 runs in the first innings, dismissed their rivals for a mere 200 in the second essay before lunch on the third day and then rattled up 90 for two to emerge convincing winners.
Parthiv Patel, opening the innings with captain Wasim Jaffer, made a breezy, unbeaten 54 with nine fours in 69 balls to hasten West's victory, 40 minutes before tea.
The left-handed batsman, who atoned for three dropped catches and a missed stumping in the first session, struck Manoj Tiwari for two successive fours to the extra cover region to ring in the victory in style.
West, who lost the wickets of Jaffer (22) and Ajinkya Rahane (9), would take on the winners of the second semi-final played at Rajkot between South Zone and North Zone in the five-day final in Chennai from February 5.
This is West's second successive entry and 32nd overall, into the Duleep final and they have won the crown on 16 occasions, including sharing the trophy three times.
Earlier East, resuming at their overnight second innings score of 128 for three, collapsed like a pack of cards against the West attack in which Gujarat pacer Sidharth Trivedi played the stellar role to pick up three of the seven wickets that fell in the first session.
Trivedi ended up with 3 for 50 while Dhawal Kulkarni, who took two wickets last evening, bagged 3 for 67. Left-arm spinner Rajesh Pawar, who claimed six wickets in the first innings and Samad Fallah got two apiece.
The lanky pacer sent back overnight batsmen and East's main hopes for a fightback -- Manoj Tiwary (11) and Saurabh Tiwari (16), as well as Halahar Das (6) to reduce East to 148 for six within nine overs after resumption of play.
Anand Katti was taken in the slip cordon off Dhawal Kulkarni to give the Mumbai pacer his third scalp of the innings and leave East at a precarious 156 for seven before they fought back through a plucky eighth wicket stand.
Wicket keeper Wridhiman Saha, lucky to escape a stumping chance off Pawar and Ranadeb Bose (10), who stonewalled for more than an hour, added 36 runs to prolong the innings.
Samad Fallah, brought into the attack after 60 overs broke the partnership at 192 by trapping Bose leg before, Basanta Mohanty fell to Pawar and then Fallah had last man Ashok Dinda caught behind to terminate the innings.
West's victory chase got off to a good start with Patel stroking the ball sweetly and Jaffer playing the supporting role well to rattle up 50 in the 12th over before the Mumbai Ranji Trophy-winning skipper departed.
Jaffer edged Dinda to second slip Rashmi Ranjan Parida and then Rahane drove Mohanty uppishly straight to cover point fielder Manoj Tiwari.
Patel and Cheteshwar Pujara (1) guided West home without further loss.
Scorecard:
East Zone 1st innings: 171 all out
West Zone 1st innings: 282 all out
East Zone 2nd innings (Overnight 128-3):
D Chakrabarty c Patel b Kulkarni 4
SS Das lbw Pawar 56
RR Parida lbw Kulkarni 47
M Tiwary c Jaffer b Trivedi 11
S Tiwary c Patel b Trivedi 16
W Saha not out 35
H Das c Jaffer b Trivedi 6
A Katti c Jaffer b Kulkarni 2
R Bose lbw Fallah 10
B Mohanty c Rahane b Pawar 0
A Dinda c Patel b Fallah 5
Extras (lb 5, wb 1, nb 2) 8
Total: (all out in 68.3 overs) 200
Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-104, 3-108, 4-133, 5-142, 6-148, 7-156, 8-192, 9-193.
Bowling: Kulkarni 19-7-50-3, Trivedi 22-4-67-3, Pawar 17-5-41-2, Nayar 4-1-10-0, Fallah 6.3-1-27-2.
West Zone 2nd innings:
P Patel not out 54
W Jaffer c Parida b Jinda 22
A Rahane c M Tiwary b Mohanty 9
C Pujara not out 1
Extras: (lb 2, nb 2) 4
Total: (for two wickets in 20.3 overs) 90
Fall of wickets: 1-50, 2-68.
Bowling: Bose 5-0-23-0, Dinda 7-0-26-1, Mohanty 4-0-26-1, Katti 3-1-4-0, M Tiwary 1.3-0-9-0.
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