Ranji Trophy 2018-19 | Kerala makes it to semis while Wasim Jaffer’s double hundred keeps Vidarbha on top

01/17/2019

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Kerala have become the first team to qualify for the semi-finals of the ongoing Ranji Trophy domestic cricket tournament as they beat Gujarat in the quarters. Meanwhile, defending champions Vidarbha are in the driver’s seat against Uttarakhand as Wasim Jaffer got to yet another double hundred.

Kerala vs Gujarat

Brief Scores: Kerala 185/9 (Basil Thampi 37, Ponnam Rahul 26; Chintan Gaja 4-57, Arzan Nagwaswalla 3/50) & 171/10 (Sijomon Joseph 56, Jalaj Saxena 44*; Roosh Kalaria 3/36, Axar Patel 3/40) beat Gujarat 162/10 (Parthiv Patel 43, Roosh Kalaria 36; Sandeep Warrier 4/42, Nidheesh 3/38) & 81/10 (Rahul V Shah 33*; Basil Thampi 5/27, Sandeep Warrier 4/30) by 113 runs.

Chasing a target of 194 runs on the third day against the home team at the Krishnagiri Stadium in Wayanad, Gujarat batsmen failed completely against the deadly pace bowling combination of Basil Thampi and Sandeep Warrier. After Thampi sent back both the openers it was Sachin Baby’s run-out against Parthiv Patel that reduced Gujarat for 11/3. Warrier then joined the party by getting rid of Rujul Bhat for a duck.

Goa kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and apart from Rahul V Shah (33), not a single batsman could get to a good start in the second innings of the match and the team folded for a mere 81 giving an easy win and a semi-final ticket for Kerala for the first time in their cricket history. Thampi picked up a five-wicket haul while Warrier finished with 4/30.

Vidarbha vs Uttarakhand

Brief Scores:Vidarbha 559/6 (Wasim Jaffer 206, Sanjay Ramaswamy 141; DK Sharma 2/87) lead Uttarakhand 355/10 (Saurabh Rawat 108, Avneesh Sudha 91; Umesh Yadav 4/90, Akshay Wakhare 2/46) by 204 runs.

Continuing from where he left yesterday, Wasim Jaffer went on to score his ninth first-class double century and in the process have put the defending champions Vidarbha right on top of the game against newcomers Uttarakhand. The Uttarakhand had no answer to some fine batting by the former Indian opener has he scored 206 runs before finally getting out to Mayank Mishra. With the 206 runs, Jaffer has become the first Asian and Indian batsman to score two double hundreds after crossing 40. Jaffer and Sanjay Ramaswamy had added a mammoth 304 runs for the second wicket which has pushed the Uttarakhand side completely on the back foot.

Meanwhile, rubbing salt to the open wounds of the bowling side, Akshay Wadkar and Aditya Sarvate also scored runs for Vidarbha lower down the order. Wadkar missed out on his 100 as he got out bowled to Mayank Mishra for 98 while Sarvate got to his seventh first-class fifty today. At stumps on the third day, Vidarbha is having a huge first-innings lead of 204 runs.

Uttar Pradesh vs Saurashtra

Brief scores:Uttar Pradesh 385/10 (Rinku Singh 150, Saurabh Kumar 55; Jaydev Unadkat 5/86, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 3-111) & 172/8 (Mohammad Saif 48, Rahul Rawat 37; Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 4/53, Chetan Sakariya 3/29) lead Saurashtra 208/10 (Harvik Desai 84, Prerak Mankad 67; Yash Dayal 4/55, Shivam Mavi 3/40) by 215 runs.

After getting bowled out for only 208 and conceding the first innings lead against Uttar Pradesh, Saurashtra has made a good comeback in the second innings with the ball as left-arm spinner Dharmendrasingh Jadeja scalped four wickets and Chetan Sakariya helped him with a three-for against the home team in Lucknow. Uttar Pradesh has been reduced to 172/8 with a 215-run lead in the second innings at stumps on Day 3. Apart from Mohammad Saif (48) and Rahul Rawat (37), there was no significant contribution by the batting department of UP.

Earlier in the day, Yash Dayal ensured that the Saurashtra side gets bowled out for 208 only after adding 38 runs to their overnight total.

Karnataka vs Rajasthan

Brief Scores:Karnataka 263/10 (Vinay Kumar 83*, Krishnamurthy Siddharth 52, Dega Nischal 5*; Rahul Chahar 5/93, TM Ul-Haq 3/50) and 45/3 (Karun Nair 18*, AV Chowdhury 2/9) need 139to win vs Rajasthan 224/10 (Rajesh Bishnoi 79, Mahipal Lomror 50; Abhimanyu Mithun 3/48, Krishnappa Gowtham 3/54) and 222/10 (Robin Bist 44, Mahipal Lomror 42; K Gowtham 4/54, Shreyas Gopal 3/52)

Karnataka will come out tomorrow on the fourth day needing another 139 runs to win with seven wickets in hand to secure a place in the semi-finals of the ongoing Ranji Trophy. Chasing 185 to win, Karnataka is 45/3 at stumps on the third day. However, they had started off on a poor note by losing the wickets of opener D Nishal (1) and KV Siddharth (5) for only 14 runs on the board. Mahipal Lomror then got rid of the other opener R Samarth while Karun Nair and Ronit more were safe at the crease when stumps were drawn on the third day.

Earlier in the day, Rajasthan resumed their innings from 11/0 but were bowled out for only 222 in the second innings. The four top order batsmen AV Gauutam (24), Chetan Bist (33), Mahipal Lomror (42) and Robin Bist (44) all got off to good starts but failed to capitalise on that. Off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham and leggie Shreyas Gopal didn’t allow the batsmen to settle down at the crease as they ended the innings with figures of 4/54 and 3/52 respectively.

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