Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk: Left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate returned an 11-wicket haul in the match as Vidarbha beat Saurashtra by 78 runs to win their second successive Ranji Trophy title on Thursday at Nagpur.
Resuming at 58 for 5 on the final day, Saurashtra were bowled out for 127 as spinners Sarwate and Akshay Wakhare shared 5 wickets between them. Vidarbha needed 30.4 overs to complete the formalities on day 5.
Sarwate returned with figures of 6 for 59 in the second innings after playing a crucial role even in the first innings, picking up five 98.
Star batsman Cheteshwar Pujara, who played a stellar role in India’s maiden Test series triumph on the Australian soil last month, could not come good for Saurashtra and was dismissed cheaply in both the innings. his 49-run knock in the second innings played a key role in his side setting the stiff 206-run target.
20-year-old Visvaraj Jadeja was the top-scorer for Saurashtra. He was dismissed for 52 by Sarvate. Once the partnership was broken, the end was inevitable for Saurashtra.
Vidarbha is only the sixth team in the tournament’s long history to have defended the title.”Everyone thought it was a fluke when we won last year and we were under pressure to retain the title. But our focus was process, we never bothered about reputation,” Vidarbha’s talismanic coach Chandrakant Pandit said.
Mumbai, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Delhi are the other teams who have managed to win consecutive titles.
Saurashtra had ended runners-up to Mumbai in 2012-13 and 2015-16 and again it was a case of so close yet so far for them.
The batting failure of star batsman Cheteshwar Pujara hurt Saurashtra badly. But Vidarbha managed to stay unaffected by Wasim Jaffer’s poor contribution.
“People did not know where Vidarbha was but it will not be the case now. It is huge for Vidarbha. The team is doing a great job,” said India pacer Umesh Uadav.
“I never thought I will win two titles with Vidarbha after playing 10 finals (eight with Mumbai),” gushed veteran Jaffer.
Earlier, for Saurashtra Makvana and Vishvaraj were not afraid to go for their shots as they swept Sarwate with confidence to send a few to the boundary ropes.
With Umesh Yadav and Sarwate not getting the desired results, Vidarbha brought Akshay Wakhare into the attack.
Both Jadeja and Makvana though kept rotating the strike.
Sarwate soon started extracting sharp turn from the wicket and tested Makvana’s defense. After a close appeal for leg-before, Makvana swept the bowler for a four in the deep mid-wicket region.
However, two balls later, Sarwate bowled Makvana who left the ball, thinking it will turn away, but it remained straight and hit the top of the off-stump.
They batted for one hour together and added 33 runs for the sixth wicket.
Only three runs were added to the total when Wakhare trapped new man in Prerak Mankad (2) to push Saurashtra to 91 for seven.
Vishvaraj completed his half-century but Sarwate trapped both him and rival captain Jaydev Unadkat.
Wakhare brought the curtains down on the match when Dharmendrasinh Jadeja lofted one straight to Sarwate.
