Ravindra Jadeja’s five-for stifled the India Red lineup after Pankaj Singh had left the opposition reeling on two for the loss of two wickets. The Gautam Gambhir-led team bowled out the opposition for 356 runs late in the final session of Day 3 to seize a massive 337-run first innings lead in the Duleep Trophy final.
However, India Blue did not enforce the follow on and were leading by 338 runs at stumps. They were one without loss of wickets as Gautam Gambhir had scored a run while Mayank Agarwal was yet to open his account in the second innings when play ended for the day on Monday night.
After his Saurashtra teammates - Cheteshwar Pujara (256*) and Sheldon Jackson (134) had helped set up the game for India Blue - Jadeja ran through the opposition on the third day to take his tally of five-wicket hauls to 21 in first-class cricket. Valiant efforts by Stuart Binny (98) and Amit Mishra (65) extended the India Red innings well into the final session of the day until Karn Sharma (two wickets) wrapped up the innings.
While India Red resumed their innings on 16 for two in the afternoon with the left-handed pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Yuvraj Singh in the middle, India Blue came out all guns blazing to add on the pressure that they had created with the early strikes.
Abhimanyu Mithun and Pankaj Singh ran in hard and kept the batsmen on their toes for the first couple of overs. Introduced in the third over of the day, Parvez Rasool too tested the batsmen. The stylish left-hander, Yuvraj Singh, though struck him through the covers as he looked to break the shackles.
A few overs later, Gambhir replaced Pankaj with Abhimanyu Mithun and the pacer accounted for the India Red skipper in his second over after being re-introduced into the attack. Yuvraj edged the ball and Pujara in the slips, who took a one-handed diving catch on a second attempt.
Gurkeerat Mann, who then came out to bat looked in good nick as he slammed Mithun for three successive boundaries in one over, but India Red soon received another setback as they lost Dhawan with the team on 67. As the opener looked to reverse sweep Jadeja, the ball took the glove and forward short-leg, Agarwal took a superb catch to send Dhawan back for 29.
Mann looked to revive the innings with Stuart Binny. The pair patiently took the team to Tea at 107 for four. The middle-order bat from Punjab brought up his half-century early into the second session after resuming on 48. However, Jadeja rattled Mann’s stumps while on 57 to leave India Red reeling on 130 for five.
Ankush Bains then made his way out to the middle and with Binny worked to keep the team in the reckoning. They kept the scoreboard ticking as they worked their way to a 64-run stand until the left-arm spinner struck again. The wicketkeeper-batsman nicked the delivery to the slips and Rohit Sharma dived to pluck a brilliant low catch.
Amit Mishra then partnered Binny in keeping the innings afloat. An able lower-order bat, the leg-spinner sent the ball soaring over Jadeja’s head to get off the mark with a boundary. Binny, who had held one end up and dismissed Rasool over mid-wicket to bring up his fifty continued to glean runs off the spinners as he kept his team in the fray. However, just two runs short of his century, the all-rounder became Jadeja’s fourth wicket of the innings.
With Mishra and Kuldeep Yadav in the middle, India Red were 235 for the loss of seven wickets at dinner. In an effort to extend the innings, the duo milked the opposition bowlers with gusto. Mishra slammed 13 boundaries besides one six as he raced to 65 off 77 before taking holing out towards long-off, where Pankaj took the catch to give Karn Sharma his first wicket. Jadeja then followed up with the wicket of Pradeep Sangwan to leave the opposition on 336 for nine. After 20 runs, Kuldeep edged Karn to the slips to bring curtains down on the India Red innings.
Brief scores:
Day 1 – India Blue 1st inn 362/3 in 90 overs (C Pujara 111*, G Gambhir 94, D Karthik 55*, S Binny 1/54, K Yadav 1/97)
Day 2 - India Blue 1st inn 693/6 decl. in 168.2 overs (C Pujara 256*, S Jackson 134, A Mishra 2/171); India Red 1st inn 16/2 in 9 overs (S Dhawan 14*, P Singh 2/12) Trail by 677 runs with 8 wickets in hand
Day 3 - India Red 1st inn 356/10 in 98.1 overs (S Binny 98, A Mishra 65, R Jadeja 5/95, K Sharma 2/85); India Blue 2nd inn 1/0 in 2 overs (M Agarwal 0*, G Gambhir 1*) Lead by 338
