India Blue trounces India Red to win Duleep Trophy

India Blue thrashed defending champion India Red by an innings and 187 runs in the final Friday to win the Duleep Trophy at NPR College ground at Dindigul.

India Blue thrashed defending champion India Red by an innings and 187 runs in the final Friday to win the Duleep Trophy at NPR College ground at Dindigul.

Spinners Deepak Jagbir Hooda (5 for 56) and Saurabh Kumar (5 for 51) needed just 10.5 overs on the fourth day to bundle out India Red for 172 in the second innings.

Overnight not-out batsmen Ishan Kishan and Writtick Chatterjee fell in the space of 10 runs to left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar and Hooda respectively.

The talented, young Kishan could only add five runs to his score of 25, while Chatterjee moved from 13 to 15 before being caught by Ricky Bhui off Hooda.

Off-spinner Hooda picked up the wickets of M Prasidh (7) and Ishan Porel (6) to finish things off for India Blue.

Earlier, Saurabh had Mihir Hirwani (5) caught behind by Smit Patel.

Left-arm spinner Swapnil Singh, who took 5 for 58 in India Red's first innings, bowled only three overs and went wicketless in the second.

Swapnil had a pretty good match as he scored 69 in India Blue's only innings apart from the five-wicket haul.

Himachal Pradesh batsman Nikhil Gangta was named man of the match for his superb knock of 130.

Brief scores: India Blue 541 all out in 167.3 overs (N R Gangta 136, Anmolpreet Singh 96, Swapnil Singh 69, Parvez Rasool 4 for 150, Mihir Hirwani 3 for 190) beat India Red 182 all out in 69.1 overs (B Sandeep 57, Swapnil Singh 5 for 58) and 172 all out in 38.5 overs (Abhinav Mukund 46, Saurabh Kumar 5 for 51, Deepak Hooda 5 for 56) by an innings and 187 runs.