Ruturaj Gaikwad lasted 18 balls. He scored 5 runs. Then Abid Mushtaq trapped him LBW in the quarter-final of the Duleep Trophy 2026-27, and the West Zone captain walked back to the pavilion at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru with nothing to show for his time at the crease.
DRS confirmed what the umpire saw. The ball pitched outside off stump, hit Gaikwad in line with the stumps, and was going on to hit the wickets. No reprieve.
West Zone needed their captain. North Zone had posted 251 in their first innings, with Anshul Kamboj scoring 60 off 52 balls and Ayush Badoni adding a half-century. This was not an imposing total. It was gettable. West Zone folded for 187 and conceded a 64-run first-innings deficit.
Gaikwad was not the only one who failed. Harvik Desai fell for 3. Prithvi Shaw made 22 off 21 balls before Abid Mushtaq bowled him with a delivery that drew a clear verdict from commentary.
“Gone! What a peach of a delivery! Yeah, nothing that Prithvi Shaw could do over there. Just quality bowling.”
Match commentary, North Zone vs West Zone quarter-final, August 23, 2026
Abid Mushtaq is no accidental threat. The 29-year-old left-arm orthodox spinner from Bhaderwah, a small town in J&K’s Doda district, was spotted by Irfan Pathan in 2018. He has a career-best of 8/18 against Vidarbha. In the 2022-23 Ranji Trophy, he took 32 wickets at 14.37 with an economy rate of 2.95.
Last season, he scored 445 runs and took 20 wickets for the Ranji Trophy champions J&K. He also hit 177 against Himachal Pradesh with the bat. Rajasthan Royals bought him at his base price of INR 20 lakh in the 2024 IPL auction. He was a net bowler for Australia during the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Abid Mushtaq dismissed both of West Zone’s recognized top-order batters in this quarter-final. Shaw bowled, Gaikwad LBW. Two different modes of dismissal, same quality of bowling.
Ruturaj Gaikwad departs early for 5(18) after a magical delivery from Abid Mushtaq in the Duleep Trophy! 👀❌#NorthZone #WestZone #DuleepTrophy #Sportskeeda pic.twitter.com/HbrIlWt31t
— Sportskeeda (@Sportskeeda) August 24, 2026
Insider Read
When a left-arm orthodox spinner pitches outside off stump to a right-hander and traps him LBW in line, there is only one explanation. The batter’s feet did not move towards the ball.
The front foot either planted on or outside off stump, or it stayed rooted on the crease. Either way, the weight went nowhere. The ball came in, found the pad, and the stumps were behind it.
A batter in form strides out to that delivery. He gets his head over the ball, smothers the spin before it has time to work, and plays through the line. A batter not in form stands still, lets the ball dictate, and hopes it misses the stumps. Five runs from 18 balls against spin in first-class cricket is not caution. It is paralysis.
Gaikwad’s decline has been visible for a while. In IPL 2026, he scored 321 runs in 13 matches at an average of 29.18 and a strike rate of 120.68. That is a sharp fall from IPL 2024, where he made 583 runs at 53.00 with a strike rate of 141.16.
| Tournament | Matches | Runs | Average | Strike Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPL 2024 | 14 | 583 | 53.00 | 141.16 |
| IPL 2026 | 13 | 321 | 29.18 | 120.68 |
| Duleep Trophy 2025-26 SF | 1 | 184 | — | — |
| Duleep Trophy 2026-27 QF | 1 | 5 | — | 27.78 |
The contrast with his last Duleep Trophy is stark. In the 2025-26 semi-final, Gaikwad scored 184 for West Zone. That innings earned him India A selection and put him back in the conversation for Test cricket.
What This Means for His Test Case
Gaikwad is 29. He has never played a Test match for India. He was named in the Test squad for the West Indies tour in 2023 but never got a cap. Earlier in 2026, he was among the contenders for a spot in India’s Test squad.
The Duleep Trophy is the audition. It is the tournament selectors watch to separate domestic run-scorers from potential Test batters. When Gaikwad scored 184 in the semi-final last year, it told selectors he could handle red-ball cricket at a level above the Ranji Trophy. When he scores 5 off 18 balls in the quarter-final this year, trapped LBW by a spinner to a delivery he should have been able to handle, it tells them something different.
North Zone ended day two at 19/1 in their second innings, leading by 83. West Zone need runs from their captain in the second innings.
Also Read:
Rajat Patidar’s Duleep Trophy Century and RCB Captaincy
Padikkal’s Back-to-Back Centuries
Sooryavanshi and Shami in Duleep Trophy Nets
