It takes lots of patience and tenacity to deal with a tight situation in front of you. The India Green men, barring its skipper Parthiv Patel (80, 109b, 8x4), failed to show any and fell apart in quick time to India Blue on the penultimate day of their Duleep Trophy clash at the NPR College grounds here on Friday.
Left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar (five for 98) and India paceman Jaydev Unadkat (four for 16) were the men in command for the Blue. The former spun a sticky web and, the latter wrapped it up with twin strike in one over to tilt the scales in the team’s favour.
Going into the day, Green required another 190 runs for the crucial first innings lead. It had only six men to do the job. Not an easy task though on a track that was starting to aid the spinners.
The overnight pair of Parthiv and Gurkeerat Mann could have planned the chase well instead they chose to step out to Saurabh to make some quick runs. But the UP spinner had other ideas. He mixed up his deliveries quite wisely and most of them fell into it.
Mann was the first to go caught by skipper Faiz Fazal at covers and Harpreet Singh Bhatia followed suit. Sarvate joined his skipper and stitched a mini-partnership (40 runs) for the seventh wicket but Saurabh struck again trapping the latter plumb in front.
Unadkat came in and cleaned up the rest in the only over that he bowled for the day.
Having gained a crucial first innings lead, Blue, in its second essay, was 21 for no loss when persistent showers stopped further play for the day.
The scores:
India Blue — Ist innings 340.
India Green — Ist innings Prashant Chopra c Unadkat b Kumar 80, Priyank Panchal c & b Unadkat 0, Sudip Chatterjee c Kumar b Unadkat 0, B, Indrajith st. Smit Patel b Kumar 35, Parthiv Patel lbw Saurabh 80, Gurkeerat Mann c Fazal b Saurabh 20; Harpreet Singh Bhatia c Gangta b Saurabh 3, Aditya Sarvate c Gangta b Swapnil 11, Atit Sheth (not out) 16, K. Vignesh c Gangta b Unadkat 6, Vignesh Mishra lbw Unadkat 0; Extras (b-6): 6; Total (in 88.5 overs) 257.
Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-9, 3-98, 4-136, 5-175, 6-179, 7-219, 8-231, 9-257.
India Blue bowling: Unadkat 10.5-3-16-4, Thampi 11-3-19-0, Wakhare 11-1-40-0, Swapnil 23-2-58-1, Saurabh 27-7-98-5, Bhui 3-0-13-0, Shorey 3-0-7-0.
India Blue — 2nd innings: Faiz Fazal (batting) 9, Smit Patel (batting) 11; Extras (lb-1); Total (for no loss in 6.4 overs) 21.
India Green bowling: Vignesh 3.4-1-9-0, Sarvate 3-0-11-0.