Nagpur, Jan 19 (PTI) Left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate grabbed a match haul of 11 wickets as Vidarbha pipped Gujarat by 18 runs, defending 73 on the third day morning in a Ranji Trophy Group D match at Jamtha here on Thursday.
With this Vidarbha defended the lowest score — 73 — successfully in first-class cricket in India, bettering Bihar’s 78 against Delhi in Jamshedpur way back in the 1948-49 season.
At a venue where India’s opening Test against Australia is slated to be played in less than a month’s time, the match witnessed 15 wickets tumbling on day one, followed by 16 on the next day.
The Ranji Trophy game was played on a side pitch, while the Test would be played on one of the centre strips.
Chasing a paltry 73, Gujarat resumed their second innings on six for one but were shot out for 54 runs inside 31 overs on the third day morning with Sarwate once again running through their line-up with stunning figures of 15.3-6-17-6 to complement his first innings’ 5/64.
Sarwate, who returned with a career-best match haul of 11/81, was complemented well by another left-arm spinner in Harsh Dubey (9-1-11-3).
Siddharth Desai, who batted on No. 3, was the only Gujarat batter to reach a double-digit score (18) and was dismissed by a run-out.
Electing to bat, Vidarbha’s first innings folded for 74 in 30.3 overs at the stroke of lunch on day one, with the Gujarat pace duo of Chintan Gaja and Tejas Patel grabbing five wickets each.
Gujarat scored 256 in their first innings, taking a lead of 182 runs.
Vidarbha put up a strong fight in their second essay with Jitesh Sharma leading the show with a 53-ball 69, while no. 9 batter Nachiket Bhute also contributed a significant 42 off 66 balls.
Gujarat’s Siddharth Desai, left-arm orthodox spinner, was their wrecker-in-chief as he returned with 6/74 to bundle out Vidarbha for 254 and a win seemed formality for the visitors with a small target of 73.
But Sarwate had other ideas as Gujarat batters fell like nine pins on an eventful third day morning as Vidarbha bagged six points from the match to move to joint-second place with Punjab.
Brief Scores At Nagpur: Vidarbha 74 and 254. Gujarat 256 and 54; 33.3 overs (Siddharth Desai 18; Aditya Sarwate 6/17, Harsh Dubey 3/11). Vidarbha won by 18 runs. Points: Vidarbha 6, Gujarat 0.
At Mohali: Punjab 443. Madhya Pradesh 244; 78.4 overs (Yash Dubey 50, Shubham Sharma 50, Harsh Gawli 53; Siddarth Kaul 4/55) and following on 77; 27.5 overs (Kumar Kartikeya 21 not out; Arshdeep Singh 4/30, Mayank Markande 3/19, Kaul 2/11). Punjab won by an innings and 122 runs. Points: Punjab 7, MP 0.
At Chandigarh: Railways 386. Chandigarh 485/8; 149 overs (Manan Vohra 126, Gaurav Puri 102 batting, Kunal Mahajan 83, Gurinder Singh 42; Himanshu Sangwan 3/64, Sagar Jadhav 2/71). Chandigarh lead by 99 runs.
At Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir 446/6 declared; 156 overs (Abhinav Puri 121, Shubham Khajuria 53, Vivrant Sharma 55, Ian Chauhan 61, Abdul Samad 58, Musaif Ajaz 43 not out; S S Ghosh 3/106). Tripura 76/4; 37 overs (Bikram Das 39 batting, Subham Ghosh 23 batting; Abid Mushtaq 3/13). Tripura trail by 370 runs.
Source: PTI News
