Duleep Trophy | Akshay Wakhare claims five-for as India Red emerge champions
BCCI
Akshay Wakhare ripped through India Green's batting unit with a five-wicket haul to help Red win the Duleep Trophy title at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru. After trailing by 157 runs in the first innings, India Green could score only 119 in the second to suffer an innings-and-38-run loss.
Brief scores: India Green 231 (Mayank Markande 76*) and 119 (Siddhesh Lad 42; Akshay Wakhare 5-13) lost to India Red 388 (Abhimanyu Easwaran 153; Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 3-93) by an innings and 38 runs.
A poor batting display in the first innings had left India Green a lot to handle in the second innings and it required an earnest attempt to save the team's blushes. However, once Jaydev Unadkat got the better of Green skipper Faiz Fazal, things started to look menacing for the team when Avesh Khan dismissed Dhruv Shorey for 5. Hyderabad opener Akshath Reddy staged a mini fightback with a brisk 33 but by cleaning him up, Avesh Khan started the slide.
The Madhya Pradesh pacer, who is in the periphery of the Indian team, followed that up by dismissing Akshdeep Nath to leave Green in further trouble before Wakhare took over from him. The Vidarbha spinner was incisive in his line and length as he ran through middle and lower order, as Green were bowled out in just under 40 overs. In the Green squad, Siddhesh Lad was the only middle-order batsman to show some resillence, scoring an impressive 80-ball 42 in the process.
Earlier, on Day 3, Red could only add 43 runs to their overnight total of 345 for 6 and were bundled out for 388. Ankit Rajpoot and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja were the wreckers in chief for Green with three scalps each but as it turned out, that wasn't enough.
