A splendid lower-order fightback, led by captain Jaydev Unadkat, was not enough for Saurashtra to take the crucial first innings lead against defending champions Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy final in Nagpur on Monday.
Saurashtra batsmen survived nasty body blows from Umesh Yadav during their gallant fight against Vidarbha.
The title clash was tantalisingly poised at close of play on day three. Dharmendrasinh Jadeja picked up two wickets for Saurashtra, with both the openers Faiz Fazal and R Sanjay back in the pavilion. Vidarbha led by 60 runs with 8 wickets in hand. The hosts now lead by 60 runs with reliable Wasim Jaffer (5) and Ganesh Satish (24) at the crease.
Resuming at a precarious 158 for five, Saurashtra’s lower order batsmen showed remarkable gumption and grit to take the first innings to 307, just five short of hosts’ first innings total.
With the first innings lead virtually nullified, Vidarbha in their second innings lost skipper Faiz Fazal (10) and R Sanjay (16) to left-arm spinner Jadeja (2/36) before ending the day at 55 for two.
From 173/6, Saurashtra dug in to give Vidarbha a scare. The 10th wicket partnership, that lasted 162 balls, was worth 63 runs between Unadkat and Chetan Sakariya could only take Saurashtra to within five runs of Vidarbha’s first innings total.
When Unadkat went for a sweep that was hit in the air, straight to R Sanjay at backward square leg off , the batsman had his head down while Vidarbha celebrated the wicket like they had won the match — with a little over days two left, that might well be the case if Saurashtra don’t record an outright win from here.
There are six sessions left in the match and Saurashtra, who have had a happy knack of chasing down fourth innings totals, will certainly fancy their chances.
Here’s the complete scorecard of Saurashtra’s innings:
If there is no outright result in a Ranji Trophy knockout match, the team leading after the first innings is the winner.
Earlier, Vidarbha made a remarkable recovery to score 312 in their first innings after resuming at 200/7 on Monday and then reduced Saurashtra to 158/5 at stumps on day two.
Wakhare (4/80) and Sarwate (5/98) shared nine wickets between them while in-form Umesh Yadav took the all-important wicket of Snell Patel for a well-made 102.
Overnight batsman Patel completed his first century of the season and when India pacer Yadav sent him back after smacking one on his helmet, Saurashtra were still 128 runs away from Vidarbha’s total.
Patel had also taken one hit on his hand as Yadav seemed unplayable with his raw pace and bounce. The wicket-keeper batsman was later taken for an MRI scan, which came clear.
Yadav did intimidate Saurashtra with his small yet brute intermittent spells, during which he also hit overnight batsman Prerak Mankad on his shoulder.
However, what followed after both Patel and Mankad’s dismissals was an extraordinary fightback by Saurashtra’s tail, which batted out two sessions including the extended one in the morning.
The team was gasping for breath at 184 for seven but Kamlesh Makwana (27 off 61 balls) and Jadeja (23 off 32) added 38 runs for the eighth wicket stand.
Jadeja found even fluent drives off Umesh and comfortably lofted spinners to add some quick runs while Makwana was going steady, rotating the strike.
Off-spinner Wakhare broke the partnership by getting Makwana caught in the first slip and Sarwate got rid of Jadeja in the same fashion to complete his five-wicket haul.
But there was no respite for the hosts as captain Unadkat (46) then produced one of the best knocks of his first class career by digging in his heels with Sakariya (28).
Vidarbha tired all their options but could not break Unadkat and Sakariya’s dogged resistance. Throughout his innings, Unadkat kept sweeping the spinners even as Sakaria was hit on the back of his helmet by a nasty Umesh bouncer in his gritty knock.
Vidarbha could only wait for a mistake to happen and Unadkat’s innings ended when he swept one straight to square leg.
In Vidarbha’s second essay, Sanjay survived a strong leg-before appeal, a caught and bowled chance off Makwana before finally getting stumped by Jadeja, who had also bowled rival skipper.
(With PTI inputs)
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