The first semi-final of Duleep Trophy 2026 was played between East Zone and Central Zone. In this match, East Zone, captained by Ishan Kishan, defeated Central Zone by 4 wickets and made it to the finals. Central Zone had set a target of 159 runs, which East Zone easily achieved on the third day of the match (1 September) by losing 6 wickets in 39.3 overs. The winning boundary came from the bat of Mohammed Shami. He returned unbeaten after scoring 8 runs in 5 balls. Ishaan played an unbeaten inning of 39 runs in 41 balls.
Earlier, young sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi had scored 40 runs in 43 balls with the help of 3 fours and 2 sixes. In the short run chase, he made an opening partnership of 61 runs with Abhimanyu Easwaran (24). After the dismissal of these two, Kumar Kushagra and Virat Singh took East Zone close to 100. Virat Singh became the victim of Harsh Dubey after scoring 12 runs. Left arm spinner Harsh Dubey had increased the excitement by dismissing Kushagra (22) and Anukul Roy (0) on consecutive balls in the 33rd over, but Ishan stood at one end and showed the way out to last year's champion Central Zone.
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Vaibhav had scored 92 runs in the first innings
East Zone won the toss and bowled first and bundled out Central Zone for 266 runs in its first innings. Mukesh Kumar and Abhijeet Sarkar took 3 wickets each, while Mohammed Shami and Mohd. Kaunen Qureshi had 2-2 wickets in his account. East Zone's first innings started on the second day of the match. Vaibhav batted brilliantly and scored 92 runs in 81 balls. Easwaran also supported him well from the other end.
The East Zone team had scored 161 runs without any loss and were looking to gain a big lead but their innings fell apart as soon as Vaibhav and Easwaran (69) were out. From 161 for 0, the entire team collapsed to 266. The score of both the teams was same in the first innings. Neither team could take the lead. Central Zone, which had made an excellent comeback with the ball, now had momentum but Mukesh Kumar and Shami gave it a bad start. Till stumps on the second day, he gave 3 blows to the central zone.
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Mukesh Kumar became player of the match
The Central Zone team set out to extend its innings on the third day with a score of 45/3 but could only reach 158 runs in front of the sharp bowling of Mukesh and Shami. Mukesh Kumar took 4 wickets, while Shami took 3 wickets and destroyed Central Zone cheaply, due to which East Zone got a small target and Ishan's team achieved it and got the ticket to the final. Mukesh took 7 wickets in the match. He was awarded the Player of the Match award. The final match will be played in Chennai from 6th September.