Duleep Trophy 2023 Final: Nice to get one back against West Zone, says South Zone captain Hanuma Vihari

Brothers in arms: Vihari and Mayank were instrumental with the bat in South’s successful campaign.
| Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR

Having served as the South Zone captain which lost the Duleep Trophy final to West Zone in the previous edition, Hanuma Vihari entered this fixture with a point to prove. He pulled out all the stops to ensure that South prevailed in this rematch.

“It is nice to get one back against West Zone. They dominated us last year, although we got the first innings lead. We again got the innings lead in this match, so I reminded the boys of what happened last year,” Vihari said.

Natural leader

Vihari has all the qualities of being a natural leader. The experienced batter excelled in tactics, game awareness and man management.

“I loved it (captaincy). If you have a good bowling attack then the captaincy pressure comes down,” the genial Vihari said.

Zonal system

The 29-year-old explained that he prefers the zonal team system used for this tournament, rather than the India Red, India Blue and India Green sides which competed from 2016 to 2020.

“The quality of cricket in this year’s Duleep Trophy was really good. I’m not just saying this because we won the tournament (laughs). When it was India Blue or India Green, the players went through the motions. Once it came back to the zonal format, the competitiveness went up. It hope it remains the same,” Vihari said.

The decision to include V. Koushik in the eleven for the final proved to be a masterstroke, as the Karnataka pacer picked up four crucial wickets in the second essay.

“The reason why I picked Koushik ahead of (K.V.) Sasikanth is because there was a bit of a lack of discipline in the semifinal. We needed a bowler who could contain the runs and pick wickets at the same time. Koushik knows the conditions here well and I believed that picking him will give us control,” Vihari said.