Central Zone showed their domination on the second day of the final of the 2025 season of the Duleep Trophy at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, thanks to the twin centuries from captain Rajat Patidar and Yash Rathod, who remained unbeaten on 137 runs by the end of the day’s play to shoulder a lead of over 230 runs. 

Yash Rathod, the Vidarbha left-handed batter, went on to stretch his knock to 194 runs in 286 balls, decorated by 17 boundaries and a pair of sixes at a strike rate of 67.83. His concentration finally broke when Gurjapneet Singh broke through his stumps. His overnight partner, Saransh Jain, clubbed 69 runs in 193 balls.

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Later, in the first innings, Deepak Chahar also smacked a fine contribution of 37 runs at a strike rate of over 75, with the help of three fours and a couple of sixes. They went past the 500-run mark quite easily in 145.1 overs.

Duleep Trophy 2025 Final Round: All Scores from Day 3

Both Ankit Verma and Gurjapneet picked up four wickets each in a long spell of hot conditions. Central Zone had already taken a lead of over 350 runs in the first innings, which was anticipated to be enough for them to lift the title. But the South Zone’s openers showed fight after two days of fielding when the tired body and feet start to dance in the middle.

Tanmay Agarwal and Mohit Kale, both openers, got starts in their innings, but they failed to convert them into big scores. The latter claimed 38 runs with seven boundaries. Smaran Ravichandran and Ricky Bhui remained unbeaten in the end with respective scores of 37 and 26 as they pushed themselves to 129/2 to reduce the trail to 233 runs.

It will still be an acid test for the South Zone as the game heads to the fourth day of the fixture. Jain and Kuldeep Sen picked up those wickets for Central Zone as the umpires took early stumps due to bad light.

Duleep Trophy 2025 Final Round: All Scores from Day 3

South Zone- 129/2 (Smaran Ravichandran 37*, Kuldeep Sen 1/22) & 149/10 (Tanmay Agarwal 31, Salman Nazir 24, Saransh Jain 5/49, Kumar Kartikeya 4/53) trail Central Zone 511 (Yash Rathod 194, Rajat Patidar 101, Gurjapneet Singh 4/124) by 233 runs at Stumps on Day 3. 

Yash Rathod played a remarkable 194-run innings for Central Zone in the final of the 2025 Duleep Trophy against South Zone. Rathod utilized the foundation properly, which was built by their skipper Rajat Patidar (101) yesterday before the stumps. Rathod missed a double century only by 6 runs; Gurjapneet's inswinger bowled him out. 

During the mammoth batting performance, Rathod stitched multiple useful partnerships, which took their score to 511 before losing all of the scalps. With Patidar, the middle-order batter formed a 167-run partnership, which was perhaps the most crucial partnership of the match. When the Nagpur-born got Saransh Jain as the batting partner, it turned into a nightmare for South Zone bowlers. Together they added 176 on the scoreboard. With Deepak Chahar, Rathod stitched a 58-run partnership against 77 deliveries. 

Who is Yash Rathod? 

Yash Rathod is the top run scorer of the Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season. He scored 960 runs from 18 innings, including three fifties and five big hundreds for Vidharbha. Rathod emerged as a crucial contributor behind Vidharbha's successful run to the final match of the tournament. Before the Ranji Trophy, he was near to entering into the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. In the semifinal, against Maharashtra, the batter scored 116 runs. In the contest, he accumulated 406 runs at an average of 67. 

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The 25-year-old, who is mostly known for his batting abilities as a middle-order batsman, can bowl occasionally. His domestic trophy stats are more than impressive. In first-class cricket, Rathod scored 1672 runs at an average of 50.66 in 20 matches. In List A cricket, his batting average is slightly over 47, as he scored 859 runs in 24 matches. In the Duleep Trophy 2025, against the Northeast Zone match, Yash scored an unbeaten 87 runs and 78 runs in the first and second innings, respectively. 

Incredible achievements of Yash Rathod:

- 194-run knock in the Duleep Trophy 2025 final

- Century in VHT Semifinal 2024-25

- Century in Ranji Trophy Semifinal 2024-25

- Century in Ranji Trophy Semifinal 2023-24