Himachal Pradesh’s all-round show against Pondicherry helped the team bag its first win of the Ranji Trophy season at the Siachem Stadium on Sunday.
With the win, Himachal also confirmed its place in the Elite group for next year, after pocketing seven points, and stayed clear of relegation to the Plate division.
Spinners Gurvinder Singh, playing his last First-Class game, and Mayank Dagar combined to take 14 wickets across the two innings as Himachal bowled out the host for 198 after enforcing a follow-on, winning its final Group D fixture by an innings and 63 runs with four more sessions left in the game.
Himachal had Pondicherry on the backfoot coming into the third day. Despite opener Akash Kargave at the crease, the host had lost seven wickets overnight.
Kargave reached his century in the first over of the day, but Himachal bundled out Pondicherry inside 30 minutes. The visitors then asked Pondicherry to bat again after taking a 261-run first-innings lead.
Openers Kargave and Paras Ratnaparkhe started with a positive intent, scoring nearly at four runs an over. However, Dagar removed Ratnaparkhe, and two balls later, Mukul Negi got Kargave out.
Then Paras Dogra and Parameeshwaran dug in to try and make a game of it. The pitch helped the spinners but it wasn’t unplayable. Just when the duo looked set, Akash Vashisht removed Dogra with Ravi Thakur taking a brilliant low catch at silly point.
Pondicherry fell like a pack of cards in the post-lunch session, going from 81 for three to 157 for nine. Gaurav Yadav decided to have fun and flexed his muscles to hit six huge maximums. He was eventually cleaned up by Dagar, who completed a five-wicket haul.
Comments
SHARE