Forty-eight balls and 36 minutes. That’s all it took for speedster Umesh Yadav and left-arm spinner Aditya Sarvate to take the last five wickets and consign Team Uttarakhand to defeat by an innings and 115 runs at the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium on Saturday.
The middle-order had been rattled on the fourth evening, with wickets off what turned out to be the last two balls of the penultimate day’s play. The final day saw the Uttarakhand lower middle-order and the tail being steamrolled by Yadav and Sarvate.
On the rampage
The fact that the Vidarbha duo shared the last five wickets while conceding just seven runs on Day Five speaks volumes of their effectiveness — Uttarakhand batsmen had no clue about how to face the India fast bowler and a consistent spinner.
Sarvate struck off the 12th ball of the day, trapping Malolan Rangarajan lbw. Three overs later, Yadav beat Saurabh Rawat with his pace; he was also found to be plumb in front of the wickets. After another three deliveries, Sunny Rana paid the price for attempting a heave off Sarvate — an audacious choice that resulted in him being bowled. In the next over, Deepak Dhapola was too late to put his bat down on one from Yadav that moved in and had him castled. With this wicket, Yadav completed his 11th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.
With Yadav on fire, Sarvate, the first-innings centurion, knew that he had to strike quickly if he had to achieve a rare feat of a hundred and a five-wicket haul in the same match. It took him just one ball to do that — he sneaked a delivery through No. 11 Dhanraj Sharma’s defences. It completed the mauling.
Despite the defeat, Uttarakhand will still end its maiden Ranji Trophy season on a satisfying note.
Vidarbha, on the other hand, will head to Wayanad and face Kerala, the first-time semifinalist, to keep its title defence alive.
Comments
SHARE