Vihari ‘definitely enjoying captaincy’ after leading South Zone to Duleep Trophy title

India batter Hanuma Vihari says he relishes the role of captaincy after leading South Zone to victory in the Duleep Trophy on Sunday.

Vihari, who will be representing for Madhya Pradesh this domestic season, led from the front with scores of 63 and 42 as South Zone defeated West Zone by 75 runs in the final in Bengaluru.

Chasing 298 to win, West Zone were bundled out for 222 on Sunday with a majority of the runs coming off the bats of skipper Priyank Panchal (95) and Sarfaraz Khan (48). Seamer Vasuki Koushik (4/36) and R Sai Kishore (4/57) led the way for South Zone with four wickets each.

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The performance will definitely boost Vihari’s credentials in his attempt to reclaim his lost spot in the Indian team. But for now, it is quite understandable that the right-hander termed the whole experience as an “enjoyable” one.

“Yeah! Definitely I enjoyed captaincy. When you have a team like that you will enjoy doing captaincy,” Vihari said after the win on Sunday.

However, Vihari paid wholesome compliments to the bowling attack of South Zone.

“When you have this kind of bowling attack, captaincy pressure will come down. It was our plan to curtail them to below three runs (per over), and they executed it as the quality bowlers will make the captain’s job really easy,” said Vihari.

Vihari also reserved a special word of praise for three Karnataka pacers, Vidwath Kaverappa, Vijayakumar Vyshak and Koushik.

The troika grabbed 16 of the 20 West Zone wickets to have fallen in this match.

“All three Karnataka fast bowlers who played this match knew the wicket very well. I had said earlier as well that having bowlers who know the conditions is an advantage to us.

“But to be able to put it into use is another thing, all three of them showed their skills. The West Zone bowlers have a lot of quality on paper and to get them out needed special skills and they executed it really well,” he said.

Vihari said the dismissal of Sarfaraz late on the fourth evening was the turning point of the match.

“Yesterday in the third session, Priyank and Sarfaraz batted really well. His dismissal was the turning point, I thought.

“If Sarfaraz was there, he could have handled that spell of Vidwath and Koushik, and getting Sarfaraz’s wicket in the last session was the turning point,” said Vihari.

With inputs from PTI