Recovering from a seemingly hopeless situation, North Zone defeated Central Zone by two wickets in a group B match of the inter-academy cricket tournament for the Col. Hemu Adhikari Trophy in Bangalore on Saturday. North, Central and West, the three teams in the group all ended with one win and one defeat each. But on better run rate, West qualified to meet East in the final on Monday.

Electing to bat, Central Zone scored 205 for eight in 47 overs. Rain in the morning shortened the duration of the game. Opener AV Mann was the mainstay with a valuable 85. He faced 126 balls and hit six fours. He was involved in two fruitful partnerships. First, with M Mishra (28) he added 59 runs for the second wicket off 16.4 overs. Then with wicketkeeper NV Ojha (33) he put on 61 runs for the sixth wicket off 5.4 overs. Mann was seventh out at 199 in the 46th over while Ojha hit two fours and a six in facing only 23 balls. Kunal Lal and Abishek Sharma took three wickets each for 35 and 43 runs respectively.

Medium pacer Devendra Singh pushed North Zone on to the backfoot with a fine spell. He took three wickets and at 12 for five, North Zone were tottering. Then commenced the fightback. P Dogra (47) and skipper K Rawat (92) added 135 runs for the sixth wicket off 28 overs. Then after both batsmen fell in quick succession, wicketkeeper H Khullar (18) and Abhishek Sharma (26 not out) added 35 runs for the eighth wicket off five overs to take North Zone to the doorstep of victory which was finally achieved with 2.4 overs to spare.

© CricInfo