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South Zone captain Tilak Verma has missed a century by 1 run in the final of Duleep Trophy 2026. Tilak had reached the threshold of century by increasing his innings by 56 runs on the fourth day of the match (9 September) but in the end he hurried away. He took a single in the 107th over of the South Zone innings after hitting a four on the first ball of Mukesh Kumar, taking him to his personal score of 99 runs. Now Mohammad Siraj came on strike, who was given out LBW by Mukesh.

After this, number 11 batsman MD Nidhish came to the crease. He somehow played the remaining three balls of Mukesh, due to which the strike came to Tilak in the next over and he got a golden opportunity to complete his century but he gave a return catch to East Zone off-spinner Mohammad Konan Qureshi.

Tilak was out as the last wicket after scoring 99 runs in 211 balls. In this way the first innings of South Zone ended at 336. East Zone, captained by Ishan Kishan, had scored a huge score of 708 runs in its first innings. He got a huge lead of 372 runs.

Ishaan's team is sure to become champion

There are still 5 sessions left in the title match of Duleep Trophy but the result does not seem to be coming. The East Zone team has decided to bat in the second innings instead of following on. In such a situation, there is every possibility that the match will end in a draw. If the match is drawn, East Zone will be declared the winner on the basis of first innings lead.

With the help of a double century by Ishan Kishan (270) and a century by Kumar Kushagra (101), East Zone made a big total in the first innings. Shikhar Mohan (85), Abhimanyu Easwaran (73), Anukul Roy (45) and Vaibhav Suryavanshi (44) also made important contributions. Shikhar Mohan also did wonders with the ball and took 2 wickets. Mukesh Kumar hunted 3 batsmen from South Zone. Mohammed Shami and Qureshi got 2 successes each.