Vihari credits South Zone’s bowlers for helping clinch Duleep Trophy
However, Vihari paid wholesome compliments to the bowling attack of South Zone.
South Zone players pose with the trophy after defeating West Zone in the final of Duleep Trophy on Sunday
BENGALURU: Hanuma Vihari has shown that captaincy sits lightly on him as he led South Zone to the Duleep Trophy title triumph, and sweetened the moment contributing with 105 runs in two innings.
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,” said Vihari, who will turn out for Madhya Pradesh for the rest of the domestic season.
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 Vasuki 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 Khan late on the fourth evening was the turning point of the match.
“Yesterday (Saturday) in the third session, Priyank and Sarfaraz batted really well. His (Sarfaraz) dismissal was the turning point, I thought.
“If Sarfaraz was there, he could have handled that spell of Vidwath and Koushik, and getting his wicket in the last session was the turning point,” said Vihari.
Brief scores: South Zone 213 & 230 bt West Zone 146 & 222 in 84.2 overs (P Panchal 95, S Khan 48, V Koushik 4/36, Sai Kishore 4/57)